Plotting styles

The commands set style data and set style function change the default plotting style for subsequent plot and splot commands.

The types used for all line and point styles (i.e., solid, dash-dot, color, etc. for lines; circles, squares, crosses, etc. for points) will be either those specified on the plot or splot command or will be chosen sequentially from the types available to the terminal in use. Use the command test to see what is available.

None of the styles requiring more than two columns of information (e.g., errorbars or errorlines) can be used with splots or function plots. Neither boxes, filledcurves nor any of the steps styles can be used with splots. If an inappropriate style is specified, it will be changed to points.

The above caveat does not apply to plot with labels, for which the third column specifies a data source rather than coordinate information. See set style labels (p. ).

For 2-d data with more than two columns, gnuplot is picky about the allowed errorbars and errorlines styles. The using option on the plot command can be used to set up the correct columns for the style you want. (In this discussion, "column" will be used to refer both to a column in the data file and an entry in the using list.)

For three columns, only xerrorbars, yerrorbars (or errorbars), xerrorlines, yerrorlines (or errorlines), boxes, and boxerrorbars are allowed. If another plot style is used, the style will be changed to yerrorbars. The boxerrorbars style will calculate the boxwidth automatically.

For four columns, only xerrorbars, yerrorbars (or errorbars), xyerrorbars, xerrorlines, yerrorlines (or errorlines), xyerrorlines, boxxyerrorbars, and boxerrorbars are allowed. An illegal style will be changed to yerrorbars.

Five-column data allow only the boxerrorbars, financebars, and candlesticks styles. An illegal style will be changed to boxerrorbars before plotting.

Six- and seven-column data only allow the xyerrorbars, xyerrorlines, and boxxyerrorbars styles. Illegal styles will be changed to xyerrorbars before plotting.

For more information about error bars with and without lines, please see plot errorlines (p. ) and plot errorbars (p. ).