mxtics

Minor tic marks along the x axis are controlled by set mxtics. They can be turned off with unset mxtics. Similar commands control minor tics along the other axes.

Syntax:

      set mxtics <freq>
      set mxtics default
      set mxtics time <N> <units>
      unset mxtics
      show mxtics

The same syntax applies to mytics, mztics, mx2tics, my2tics, mrtics, mttics and mcbtics.

<freq> is the number of sub-intervals (NOT the number of minor tic marks) between major tics. The default for a linear axis is either 2 (one mark) or 5 (four marks) depending on the spacing of the major tics.

default will return the number of minor ticks to its default value.

set mxtics time <N> <units> applies only when the major tics are set to time mode. See set mxtics time.

If the axis is logarithmic, the number of sub-intervals will be set to a reasonable number by default (based upon the length of a decade). This will be overridden if <freq> is given. However the usual minor tics (2, 3, ..., 8, 9 between 1 and 10, for example) are obtained by setting <freq> to 10, even though there are but nine sub-intervals.

To set minor tics at arbitrary positions, use the ("<label>" <pos> <level>, ...) form of set {x|x2|y|y2|z}tics with <label> empty and <level> set to 1.

The set m{x|x2|y|y2|z}tics commands work only when there are uniformly spaced major tics. If all major tics were placed explicitly by set {x|x2|y|y2|z}tics, then minor tic commands are ignored. Implicit major tics and explicit minor tics can be combined using set {x|x2|y|y2|z}tics and set {x|x2|y|y2|z}tics add.

Examples:

      set xtics 0, 5, 10
      set xtics add (7.5)
      set mxtics 5

Major tics at 0,5,7.5,10, minor tics at 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9

      set logscale y
      set ytics format ""
      set ytics 1e-6, 10, 1
      set ytics add ("1" 1, ".1" 0.1, ".01" 0.01, "10^-3" 0.001, \
                     "10^-4" 0.0001)
      set mytics 10

Major tics with special formatting, minor tics at log positions

By default, minor tics are off for linear axes and on for logarithmic axes. They inherit the settings for axis|border and {no}mirror specified for the major tics. Please see set xtics for information about these.