Notes on the gnuplot help files and documentation.
Gnuplot documentation is available in three ways:
1 - interactively, within gnuplot
2 - as a printed document.
3 - as a manual page, through the Unix man(1) facility
The first two forms describe the inner workings, and contain
equivalent information, while the third form tells how to run gnuplot.
The two first forms above derive their information from the file
gnuplot.doc, which is the MASTER copy of gnuplot help information. All
other forms, except for gnuplot.1, the man page, are derived from it.
gnuplot.doc -> gnuplot.hlp
-> gnuplot.gih
-> gnuplot.tex
-> gnuplot.ms
On VMS the interactive help is supplied by the system help facility,
using the gnuplot.hlp file. This is made with ('make hlp'). On Unix,
AmigaDOS, and MSDOS the interactive help is built in to the program,
and uses the gnuplot.gih file ('make gih').
The printed document is available in either latex or troff/nroff (ms)
format, using gnuplot.tex or gnuplot.ms, derived from gnuplot.doc with
either doc2tex or doc2ms. Type 'make dvi' or 'make nroff'. For troff,
type 'make ms' and then troff -ms gnuplot.ms in whatever way you use
troff.
If VMS users prefer the gnuplot interactive help facility to the
system facility, this can be easily changed in command.c.
Description of the gnuplot.doc format:
--------------------------------------
Here is an example of the DOC master help format:
?
1 gnuplot
GNUPLOT is a command-driven interactive function plotting program. It
...
?exit
2 exit
'exit', 'quit' and ...
?expressions
2 expressions
In general, any mathematical expression accepted by C, ...
Topics:
functions operators
?expressions functions
?functions
3 functions
The functions in GNUPLOT are ...
Topics:
abs acos arg ...
?expressions functions abs
?functions abs
?abs
4 abs
This function returns the absolute value of its argument. The
returned value is of the same type as the argument.
?expressions functions acos
?functions acos
?acos
4 acos
This function returns the arc cosine (inverse cosine) of its
argument. 'acos' returns its argument in radians.
Some notes about the format:
----------------------------
Remember that all text must be able to be processed by gnuplot, VMS,
nroff, troff, and latex, and always do something reasonable.
The first column is reserved for control characters.
Text does not start in the first column.
Lines that start in column 2 may be typeset by LaTeX.
Lines that have a space in column 2 are to be printed in a verbatim
environment by LaTeX.
Do NOT use tabs in the help file.
Conversion from this format to vax .hlp file involves removal of
lines starting with [?@#$%] (see doc2hlp). VMS uses the numbers
to represent a tree.
Conversion from this format to gnuplot .gih file involves removal of
lines starting with [0-9@#$%] (see doc2gih). Gnuplot matches your
help query against the ? lines to find the help information.
Multiple ? lines for one text block constitute synonyms. The most
specific should be first, eg 'expressions functions' before 'functions'.
Spaces are allowed here, but should be single.
Backquote pairs are converted by the doc2tex program into boldface;
that is, `some text` is converted to {\bf some text}. Be sure to pair
the backquotes, or the whole document will be boldface!
Control characters in first column:
? used by .gih format, for builtin interactive help - keyword
0-9 used by VMS help and by doc2{tex,ms} formatters to define level,keyword
@ used by doc2{tex,ms} to define table start/end
# used by doc2tex: table entry
% used by doc2ms: table entry