Request for comments: command line macros

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

 > On Tuesday 12 October 2004 11:37 pm, Petr Mikulik wrote:
>> The string patch is cool, and looks like complete -- is there still some
>> functionality missing? Should we think to put it to cvs soon?
>
> I was expecting more feedback, but maybe "no news = good news".
> Yes, the core code can probably go into cvs.  The add-ons should
> get more discussion. I'll start separate threads for each.

This is a re-implementation of the "userstrings" patch I made 
quite a while back for version 3.8 and still available for 4.0.
I know people are using this, because they send me Email.

The only issue raised about the earlier patch was that it
used the symbol "$" for a new purpose, possibly causing
confusion with multiple existing uses.  So for this new version
of the patch I have substituted the symbol "@", which is not
currently accepted by the gnuplot parser at all.

Syntax:
	myformat = " 1:2:($4-$5) with lines lt palette"
	plot "foo" using @myformat

The parsing code performs a string substitution before
interpreting the command line, yielding
	plot "foo" using  1:2:($4-$5) with lines lt palette

Since @ was not previously legal at all, I can't think how
this could break any existing scripts or usage.
But as always, comments are welcome.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center
Mailstop 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195