Development branch (version 6.1)

Version 6.0 is the most recent gnuplot stable release. Development of new features and potentially disruptive code revision is carried out in a separate branch that self-identifies as version 6.1. Since the development branch code may change at any time, you should also check the "last modified" date reported on startup or by gnuplot --version.

Here is a partial list of features under development that have not yet appeared in a stable release. Items near the top of the list will probably be back-ported to an incremental update to the current release (6.0.x). This copy of the user manual has preliminary documentation for these. Items near the bottom of the list may not appear in a stable release before version 6.2.

• New 2D plot style with hsteps allows construction of step-like plots with a variety of representations in addition to those offered by existing styles steps, histeps, fsteps, and fillsteps. See hsteps.
• Blank line equivalent for binary data files, needed to support binary input for plot styles that expect a blank line to separate data items. See binary blank.
• In previous gnuplot versions all 3D polygons, objects, and filled areas shared a single border color and linewidth taken from "set pm3d". This limitation is now removed; border properties can be specified per-plot or per-object. This change affects any scripts that expected "set pm3d" to affect the borders of 3D polygons and boxes.
• splot with contourfill at base
• Revised implementation of local variables (faster, more well-defined scope).
• "linestyle variable"
• pm3d coloring for 3D polygons (e.g. Delaunay tessellation of surfaces). See delaunay.
• splot with contourfill at base
• Revised implementation of local variables (faster, more well-defined scope).
• "linestyle variable"
• Filter input data to plot and splot through a conditional expression outside the "using" section. For example: plot DATA using 2:3 with boxes if (stringcolumn(1) eq "ABC")
• New command save changes equivalent to the old contributed external script gpsavediff. This command saves only the program settings, variables, and functions that distinguish the current state from the program state at the start of the current gnuplot session. See save changes.
• Revised wxt terminal driver with more robust threading and error recovery.
• Alternatives to gdlib for handling image files as data
• Iteration over array contents array A; for [e in A] { ... } [EXPERIMENTAL]
• Deprecation of the "sample" keyword
• New category of graphical objects called "marks" that allow definition of complex symbols used in plots. No documentation or demos yet.