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Batch/Interactive Operation

gnuplot may be executed in either batch or interactive modes, and the two may even be mixed together on many systems.

Any command-line arguments are assumed to be names of files containing gnuplot commands (with the exception of standard X11 arguments, which are processed first). Each file is loaded with the load command, in the order specified. gnuplot exits after the last file is processed. When no load files are named, gnuplot enters into an interactive mode. The special filename "-" is used to denote standard input.

Both the exit and quit commands terminate the current command file and load the next one, until all have been processed.

Examples:

To launch an interactive session:

     gnuplot

To launch a batch session using two command files "input1" and "input2":

     gnuplot input1 input2

To launch an interactive session after an initialization file "header" and followed by another command file "trailer":

     gnuplot header - trailer



Ethan Merritt 2007-03-03