Start-up

When gnuplot is run, it looks for an initialization file to load. This file is called .gnuplot on Unix and AmigaOS systems, and GNUPLOT.INI on other systems. If this file is not found in the current directory, the program will look for it in the HOME directory (under AmigaOS, Atari(single)TOS, MS-DOS, Windows and OS/2, the environment variable GNUPLOT should contain the name of this directory; on Windows NT, it will use USERPROFILE if GNUPLOT isn't defined). Note: if NOCWDRC is defined during the installation, gnuplot will not read from the current directory.

If the initialization file is found, gnuplot executes the commands in it. These may be any legal gnuplot commands, but typically they are limited to setting the terminal and defining frequently-used functions or variables.