Re: minitics patch

[Eddie K. <ko...@CS...>]

> On Thursday 11 August 2005 02:40 pm, Eddie Kohler wrote:
>
>> One portion of the minitics patch isn't obsoleted, as far as I can
>> tell.  This is the code that can place minitics automatically when
>> tics were placed explicitly.  Here's a demo:
>>
>> set logscale y
>> set yrange [1:10000]
>> set xrange [0:100]
>> set mytics 10
>> set ytics ("10^0" 1,"10^1" 10,"10^2" 100,"10^3" 1000,"10^4" 10000)
>> plot x**2
>>
>
> Is this intended to produce a different output than the current
> version does using:
>
>  set logscale y
>  set yrange [1:10000]
>  set xrange [0:100]
>  set mytics 10
> # set ytics ("10^0" 1,"10^1" 10,"10^2" 100,"10^3" 1000,"10^4" 10000)
>  set format y "10^%L"
>  plot x**2
>
> I.e., is the only effect of the patch to *not* turn off minor tics
> in the presence of user labels?  If so, then it seems like it could
> be done either by using the 'set format' statement, or by a 1-line
> change to the existing code.

If it could be done by a 1-line change, great.  The 'set format'  
statement doesn't work, as far as I know, if, for example, the user  
wants to highlight one important Y-position with a tic; "set ytics  
(1, 10, "Median" 25, 100, 1000, 10000)"

>> So what about a patch like this?
>>
>> - Update `set mxtics` documentation to say that explicit minitic
>> placement can be achieved with `set xtics`
>>
>
> Sure.  If the current docs are confusing, let's fix them.
> Also think about whether adding an explicit index entry would help
> (the cvs version of the docs makes an index).

Sure.

>> - Remove explicit `set mxtics (pos1,pos2,...)` syntax
>
> You mean remove it from your earlier patch?
> That syntax is not currently legal in the cvs code.

Yes, I meant remove it from the current patch.

>> - Allow syntax such as `set mxtics FREQ {, MAJFREQ {, OFFSET}}`,
>> which will place FREQ minitics between every "major tic", where
>> "major tics" are defined as occuring at OFFSET + i*MAJFREQ for all i.
>>
>
> You lost me there. I thought that's what the current code already
> does. Please post a sample plot that illustrates what you are aiming
> for. It's OK to dummy it up by hand; I just want to see what the  
> goal is.

The current code does do that, as long as major tics were not  
explicitly set.  If major tics were explicitly set, all automatic  
minitic generation is turned off.  (As far as I know.)  I'd like to  
tell gnuplot to go ahead and generate automatic minitics anyway,  
based on an assumed major tic frequency.

> There's another issue that is lurking. I don't see on the face of  
> it how
> you could mix manual placement of major tics with auto-generation of
> intervening minor tics.  Would each interval have a different
> spacing of tics?  That seems really strange.  And if the intervals
> are the same, then I think the current code can handle this already
> by clever use of the "set format" statement.  Post a sample plot
> and I'll see if I can come up with a way to generate it with the
> current command set.

OK, see the attached plot.  Now, one could do this with a "set ytics  
(...)" statement that placed each minitic explicitly (that's how I  
mocked it up).  But I'd like to avoid that.  A plot from the paper  
that inspired my initial patch is below that; there are varying  
formats on both axes, requiring explicit tics.

Thanks so much!
Eddie