This is the second incremental release for gnuplot stable version 6.0.
In addition to the usual minor bug fixes, it contains several new features
from the development version of gnuplot that didn't quite make it into
the initial version 6 release.
3D plot style "with filledcurves" provides additional flexibility in creating
the family of plot styles that includes waterfall plots and fence plots.
See
Terminal input when gnuplot is linked against the BSD editline library
now correctly handles UTF-8 characters. UTF-8 input has always worked
for configuration options readline=gnu or readline=builtin; now it also
works for
./configure --with-readline=bsd
This change should in particular benefit users of Debian and MacOS
binaries, which are typically linked against the editline library.
Polygons in a 3D plot ("splot ... with polygons") can use palette coloring
and pm3d lighting.
General binary keyword option "blank=NaN" facilitates using binary input
data for plot styles that would require blank lines in a text input data
stream. See
"linestyle variable" is accepted as a color specifier in plot commands.
The primary distinction between this as "linecolor variable" is that
linestyle properties are cleared by the next "reset" command.
This allows definition of a temporary color sequence affected only one plot.
Local variables are reimplemented to provide a better-defined scope
and faster evaluation of function blocks.
Existing plot styles steps, histeps, fsteps, and fillsteps are
reimplemented to use the new hsteps code.
Boxplot outlier position (horizontal displacement) is controlled by "set jitter".
The content of $GPVAL_LAST_MULTIPLOT is appended to the output from "save"
so that loading the saved file regenerates a full multiplot rather than
only the final component.
Support for replot and pan/zoom mouse operations in multiplot mode is still
incomplete. Expect further improvement in subsequent releases.
TeXLive2024 pdflatex does not like some of the UTF-8 characters in the user manual.
The distribution includes a pre-built copy of gnuplot.pdf but if you want
to rebuild it from the source in docs/gnuplot.doc please use lualatex instead.
You can either replace the definition PDFLATEX=pdflatex with PDFLATEX=lualatex
in the Makefile or provide this in the environment during configuration
PDFLATEX=lualatex ./configure
Gnuplot development is tracked in a git repository on SourceForge.
You can generate a complete history of changes using "git log"
after downloading:
Larger collection of special and complex-valued functions
New plot styles
2D plot style `with surface` works in 2D polar coordinates to produce a
solid-fill gridded representation of the plane. This is analogous to the
use of dgrid3d and pm3d to produce a 3D gridded surface.
2D plot style `with sectors` renders one annular segment ("sector") for
each line of input data. This style can generate pie and donut charts,
windrose charts, and a polar equivalent to sparse-matrix heatmaps.
2D plot style `with lines` now has a filter option `sharpen`.
This filter detects spikes in a function plot that would be missed or
under-represented due to coarse sampling. It adds an additional
sampling point at the location of each such peak.
3D plot style `with contourfill` produces 2D or 3D surfaces with
distinct z-ranges indicated by solid color fill.
Hulls, masks, and smoothing
A cluster of 2D points can be replaced by a bounding polygon ("hull").
Both convex hulls and concave hulls (�-shapes) are supported.
Any hull or other closed path can be used as a mask to display only
selected regions of a pm3d surface or image plot.
New smoothing option "smooth path" can be used on 2D and 3D curves
that are not monotonic on x or y. This allows smoothing of hulls.
Named palettes
The current palette can be saved to a named colormap for future us.
A predefined palette named "viridis" is provided.
Plots can specify a previously saved palette by name.
This permits the use of multiple palettes in a single plot command.
Named palettes can be edited to contain an alpha channel.
New built-in functions and array operations
palette(z) returns the current RGB palette color mapping for z.
rgbcolor("name") returns the 32bit ARGB value for a named color.
index(Array, element) returns the first index i for which Array[i]
is equal to element.
split("string", "separator") unpacks the fields in a string into
an array of strings.
join(array, "separator") is the complement to split().
It concatenates the elements of a string array into a single string.
`stats <non-existent file>` yields a testable value with no error;
useful to avoid errors or warnings in scripts.
Program control flow
New syntax if {...} else if {...} else {...}
XDG base directory conventions for configuration files are supported.
`unset warnings` suppresses output of warning messages to the console.
The `fit` command is protected by exception handling. Control always
returns to the next line of input even in the case of fit errors.
On return FIT_ERROR is non-zero if an error occurred.
"Watchpoints" are target values associated with individual plots
in a graph. As that plot is drawn, each component line segment is
monitored to see if its endpoints bracket the target value of a
watchpoint coordinate (x, y, or z) or function f(x,y).
If a match is found, the [x,y] coordinates of the match point are
saved for later use. Possible uses include
find the intersection points of two curves
find zeros of a function
find and notate where a dependent variable or function f(x,y)
crosses a threshold value
use the mouse to track values along multiple plots simultaneously
New terminals and terminal options
Terminals that display graphics in the same window as text entry now
support pseudo-mousing; i.e. they respond to arrow keys and other
hot-key bindings during "pause mouse".
New terminals kittygd and kittycairo provide in-window graphics for
terminal emulators that support the kitty protocol.
New terminal webp generates a single frame or an animation sequence
using webp encoding. Frames are generated using pngcairo,
then encoded through the WebPAnimEncoder API.
New terminal block for text-mode pseudo-graphics uses Unicode block
or Braille characters to offer improved resolution compared to the
dumb or caca terminals.
latex terminals standalone mode updated to work with texlive2023
Miscellaneous other new features
Multiplots can now be saved, replotted, and resized interactively.
This is a change from all previous gnuplot versions, where only the
most recent component of a multiplot could be replotted.
The command sequence that generates the current multiplot is saved to
a datablock $GPVAL_LAST_MULTIPLOT.
New command "remultiplot" replays the saved command sequence.
Time unit settings for major and minor axis tics. For example,
minor tic marks can be placed at exactly one month intervals.
The character sequence $# in a using specifier evaluates to the total
number of columns available in the current line of data.
"plot FOO using 0:(column($# - 1))" plots the last-but-one field of each row.
keyword binvalue=avg plots the average, rather than the sum, of binned data.
"set colorbox bottom" places the color box underneath the plot.
"set pm3d spotlight" adds a user-controlled spotlight to the lighting model.
New key layout options to force specific width or number of columns.
Automatic positioning of the key on the page can be manually tweaked
by giving an offset.
"set isotropic" adjusts the axis scaling in both 2D and 3D plots such
that x, y, and z axes all have the same scale.
Text rotation angles are not limited to integral degree values.
Data-driven color assignments in plot style "histograms".
A keyentry with no given plot style can be used to place a secondary title
in the key or, in combintation with "title", to create two columns of text.
The "gnuplot mode" elisp and TeX files for use with emacs are now
maintained as a separate project: https://github.com/bruceravel/gnuplot-mode
so there is no longer a configuration option --with-lisp-files.
LaTeX-related terminal drivers latex, emtex, eepic, and tpic are no longer
built by default. Their closest equivalent is the new pict2e terminal, but
LaTeX users who want support for the full range of gnuplot plot styles are
recommended to use the cairolatex or tikz terminals.
The 6.0 source code supports three primary cross-platform interactive
modes in addition to several platform-specific modes.
Qt
The qt terminal supports interactive display with menu-driven
output to png, svg or pdf. If either Qt6 or Qt5 is detected by the
configure script, this will be the default terminal. It is now the
fastest and most full-featured interactive terminal option.
To disable this terminal or force use of Qt5 even if Qt6 is present
./configure --with-qt=qt5
./configure --without-qt
Cairo/pango/wxWidgets
This set of terminals includes pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo, and cairolatex
for output to a file. The wxt terminal provides interactive display
All of these will be built by default if the configuration script finds
the required libcairo, libpango, libcairo, libwxgtk, and related
support libraries
To disable these terminals:
./configure --without-cairo
./configure --with-cairo --disable-wxwidgets
X11 (the "classic" interactive interface)
This used to be the preferred interactive interface, but the newer
wxt and qt terminals offer nicer output and a wider range of features.
Of course the terminals (output modes) present in previous gnuplot versions
are also still available. These include, among many more obscure options:
PostScript (*.ps or *.eps)
svg
png/jpeg/gif output via libgd graphics library
png/pdf/eps output via cairo graphics library
TeX/LaTeX including TikZ and ConTeXt
Bitmapped output to support older devices (e.g. HP deskjet, epson, and
seiko printers, pbm bitmapped graphics files) is available if needed
but is no longer configured in by default.
The sixel and kitty terminals display graphics in-line with the commands
typed in a suitable terminal emulator window. For example "xterm -ti 340"
emulates a vt340 with indexed color sixel graphics.
The KDE desktop konsole terminal provides RGB color sixel graphics
and 32-bit color + alpha channel graphics using the kitty protocol.
The yaft terminal emulator can provide sixel graphics at linux console
level with no x11 or other windowing system active.
Mouseable output for display on the web can be created using either
the canvas terminal (HTML5 2D canvas element) or the svg terminal.
Both allow zooming, toggling plot elements on/off, and user-scriptable
hot keys.
Some platform-specific installation tips are given in the INSTALL
file of the source package; the short version for linux/unix-like
systems is to unpack the tarball and then
build it:
cd gnuplot-6.0.2 ; ./configure ; make
test it:
make check
install it:
make install
Pay careful attention to the output of the ./configure script.
It may indicate that some output modes have been omitted because the
necessary support libraries were not found. In general you need to have
previously installed the "-devel-" versions of these libraries.
Gnuplot development is ongoing. The development branch contains preliminary
implementations of new features. The current development version is 6.1.
Bug fixes for version 6.0 will appear in patchlevel releases 6.0.1, 6.0.2, etc.
approximately twice a year or as needed to correct a serious regression.
