Re: Plans for gnuplot version 5

[sfeam <sf...@us...>]

On Saturday, 08 March 2014 09:57:31 AM Bastian Märkisch wrote:
> Am 08.03.2014 09:43, schrieb pl...@pi...:
> 
> > While on the subject of split lines it would be really handy if the
> > history re-united split lines, that may also help with the above.
> >
> >    If I have a plot command in three lines with back-slash continuation,
> > when I want to repeat it I have do the up arrow three times to get the
> > first bit, three times to get the second bit, three times to get the
> > last bit, then hit the return key.
> >
> > Unless there's a down side it would be great to the get the last
> > _command_ with one up arrow, rather then the last text line in the
> > buffer, which is pretty much useless on its own.
> >
> 
> Please have a look at Shigeharu Takeno's patch on SF:
> "#634 save multiline input to a single line in the history"
> https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/patches/634/

While I understand that in some contexts it makes sense to 
concatenate the individual \-terminated lines into a single
history entry, this is not true for the most common case. 

My typical use comes from starting with a command like:

plot \
  "A" using ... with <something complicated>, \
  "B" using ... with <something else>, \
  "C" using ... with <next set of options>, \
  "D" using ... with <yet more stuff, \
;

After looking at the results, I may decide that I want instead
C followed by D followed by A and to not include B at all.
As it is now, I can back up and reorder the component line
fragments from the history list.  If they are concatenated into
one very long line it would be more work to edit the line than
to type (or cut-n-paste) them in again.   

For this reason I do not like the idea of concatenating lines in
the history.

Maybe there is a more creative solution - perhaps a variant on
gnuplot> history !4
gnuplot> history !5
gnuplot> history !6
on the order of "history !6,4-5" or maybe "history !4 to EOC"
or something like that.

	Ethan