Examples

Examples of date format:

Suppose the x value in seconds corresponds a time slightly before midnight on 25 Dec 1976. The text printed for a tic label at this position would be

      set format x                 # defaults to "12/25/76 \n 23:11"
      set format x "%A, %d %b %Y"  # "Saturday, 25 Dec 1976"
      set format x "%r %D"         # "11:11:11 pm 12/25/76"
      set xtics time format "%B"   # "December"

Examples of time format:

The date format specifiers encode a time in seconds as a clock time on a particular day. So hours run only from 0-23, minutes from 0-59, and negative values correspond to dates prior to the epoch (1-Jan-1970). In order to report a time value in seconds as some number of hours/minutes/seconds relative to a time 0, use time formats %tH %tM %tS. To report a value of -3672.50 seconds

      set format x                 # default date format "12/31/69 \n 22:58"
      set format x "%tH:%tM:%tS"   # "-01:01:12"
      set format x "%.2tH hours"   # "-1.02 hours"
      set format x "%tM:%.2tS"     # "-61:12.50"