[Gnuplot-bugs] GNUPLOT: 'set timestamp' error - amended

[Victor J. S. <sla...@pa...>]

To the GNUPLOT Project:

      I am new at bug reports; please advise if this should be reported
in a different format.

                     'SET TIMESTAMP ERROR'

SUMMARY

      In giving the gnuplot command

                    set timestamp rotate -1,4                      (1)

it is necessary to give the xoff value (here -1) if yoff (here 4) is
given.  Using

		   set timestamp rotate   ,4                      (2)

(which assumes the default xoff=0) may give an error message.

      The error message (with plot termination) occurs for gnuplot 4.2 .
But gnuplot 4.0 accepts command (2) and gives the expected plot
result.

DISCUSSION

      The timestamp error I report here is either
a) a bug in gnuplot 4.2 or
b) a typo in the gnuplot manual:
.   "gnuplot, An Interactive Plotting Program"
.   manual prepared by Dick Crawford
.   Last editted: 2004/04/13 17:23:36 .
I therefore send this as both a "comment" and a "bug report".

      The cited manual, p.143, sec. 36.63 "Timestop" gives for the
command syntax

               set timestamp ... {<xoff>} {,<yoff>}   .            (3)

This syntax implies that command (2) is a valid command.  If giving
a yoff value requires giving xoff also, then the syntax should be
specified as

	      set timestamp ... {<xoff> {,<yoff>}}   .            (4)

      In my tests, I use command (2) as one of several lines of command
in a script file 'plotorb'; I also put the command "load 'plotorb'" in
a hidden file .gnuplot .  When I call gnuplot through the command line,
I get the error message

.    set timestamp rotate ,4
.                         ^
.    "plotorb", line 4: invalid expression   .

This occurs using  GNUPLOT Version 4.2 patchlevel 0
.                  last modified March 2007
.                  System: Linux 2.6.20-1.2952.fc6
[changing to 'set timestamp rotate 0,4' cures the problem].

     As stated previously, I found no problem in using command (2) with
.                  GNUPLOT Version 4.0 patchlevel 0
.                  last modified 15 April 2004
.                  System: Linux 2.6.22.1-41.fc7

Victor J. Slabinski
Please respond to sla...@us..., NOT to slabiv@chan .

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