Search
Home >
A config file can optionally can be used to make certain settings
that will be in effect for all ploticus invocations.
If no config file is found, standard defaults will be used.
Upon execution, ploticus checks for an environment variable called
PLOTICUS_CONFIG, which should contain the full path name of
your config file.
If a config file is found, it will be read and processed before command line
arguments are evaluated, and before script interpretation begins.
A "config file" is a completely different thing from a "script file".
Typical uses of a config file are to set up non-English month and weekday names,
to set default date or numeric notations, or to use cm instead of inch as the absolute unit.
Many (but not all) of these settings can also be made from within a
script using
proc settings.
A few can also be set from the
pl command line.
Presidence (from highest to lowest) is: proc settings, command line, config file.
Examples
Examples of config files set up for Spanish and Russian
are located in the gallery directory, named
plconfig.spanish
and
plconfig.russian
Syntax
One parameter is specified per line (see the example below).
Parameters are case-insensitive and must begin in the first column of the line.
Lines beginning with // or # are taken as
comments; blank lines are skipped.
Debugging
If you're using a config file
and want to confirm that it's being read, put the following line
at the top of your config file: option: -debug (this is because the config file is
processed before command line args are evaluated, so a
-debug on the command line won't take effect in time).
Parameters
The following parameters may be set.
Parameters that are not set assume the default value, which is shown
in (parentheses).
option:
option
[arg]
Set a pl command line option (see
pl(1)
for discussion of supported command line options) or a
prefab
parameter.
The given command line option will be in effect for all invocations of pl.
This parameter may be used as many times as necessary.
The only command line args that cannot be set this way are -prefab, -f, and -ver.
Any quoting should be omitted on parameters that have embedded white space, such as rectangle=.
Examples:
option: -gif
option: -viewer xv
option: delim=comma
option: rectangle= 1 1 5 5
varvalue:
varname=value
Preset a variable to a value.
This may be used as many times as desired within the config file to
set various variables.
This may also be used to set a variable that will be referenced later
in the config file.
Example: varvalue: MODE=normal
putenv:
varname=value
Set an environment variable for current process and all subprocesses.
This may be used as many times as desired within the config file to
set various environment variables.
Example: putenv: ERRMODE=normal
tmpdir:
dirname
The directory that ploticus uses for temporary files.
By default this is /tmp.
This can also be set in pl.h.
Example: tmpdir: /var/tmp
The remaining parameters, from here to end of page,
can be set using a config file, or within a script using
proc settings.
units
in | cm
The measurement unit to be used for ploticus absolute units.
Either in (inches) or cm (centimeters).
Default is in.
If this is set in the config file, it will be in effect when command line
arguments are evaluated. If set in proc settings, it will not have any
effect on command line argument evaluation.
Example: units: cm
encodenames
yes | no
If yes, spaces and commas can be represented in field names using an encoding scheme where
a space is represented using an underscore (_) and a comma is represented using a vertical bar (|).
Useful in situations where field names will be visible directly as legend labels or axis stubs.
For scripts, the default is no for backward compatibility. For prefabs the default is yes.
(2.30+)
Example:
students
enable_suscripts
yes | no
errmsgpre
tag
Allows developer to set the first portion of all ploticus error messages to tag
(it will stay in effect until explicitly set again).
For example, where a web page generates multiple plots it may be useful in identifying
which plot had the error.
font
fontname
Make fontname the default font.
Font names having embedded spaces will be parsed correctly (but may still be problematic).
For more information see
fonts.
numbernotation
standard | us | euro
Specifies how decimal point and thousands separators will be displayed.
Default is standard.
The following table illustrates:
standard us euro
---------- ------------ -------------
79 79 79
79.5 79.5 79,5
4321.79 4321.79 4321,79
54321 54,321 54.321
654321.07 654,321.07 654.321,07
1987654321 1,987,654,321 1.987.654.321
numberspacerthreshold
n
Specifies at what numeric magnitude thousands separators will begin to be inserted.
Default is 4, and this is used in the above table. If it were set to 3, the third entry
in the above table would appear like this:
4321.79 4,321.79 4.321,79
PostScript / EPS settings
ps_latin1_encoding
yes | no
A latin1 encoding scheme has been added to the postscript driver to make
extended ascii characters consistent with other graphical formats, and this
encoding is in effect by default. To disenable feature set this to no.
You may want to try this if other applications are having trouble with your EPS files.
(2.30+)
SVG / XML settings
Overall settings affecting
SVG graphics.
xml_declaration
yes | no
The default (yes) causes the first line of the SVG result to contain the XML declaration <?xml .. > .
Use no to suppress the XML declaration line if the SVG result is to be embedded into
a larger XML document. This may also be done using the -omit_xml_declaration
command line argument.
xml_encoding
method
This may be used to set the XML character encoding method.
It has no effect when xml_declaration is no.
The default is iso-8859-1 which provides Latin and Western European character sets.
For Unicode fonts this should be set to utf-8 (for more discussion see the Unicode section in
fonts
).
Equivalent to the -xml_encoding
command line argument.
svg_tagparms
text
Allows allows arbitrary text to be inserted into the opening <svg> tag.
Example: svg_tagparms: height="5cm" width="8cm"
svg_mouseover_js
method1 | generic
Specifies the method to use for SVG mouseover. The default is method1, which provides
standalone SVG mouseover support (the SVG result will contain embedded references to javascript files
GraphPopups.js and ViewBox.js).
Specify generic here if you're using some other javascript strategy such as overlibmws ("method #2").
For more discussion, see the
ploticus SVG manual page, mouseover section.
svg_linkparms
text
DISCONTINUED in 2.33+ .... use the new clickmapurl: [target=new]http://www.abc.com/...
syntax described
here.
When generating SVG
clickmap-enabled
results, this
allows additional attributes to be supplied to
SVG's <a .. > construct.
System environment
cpulimit
s
Sets a unix resource limit on cpu time to s seconds. Default is 30 seconds.
See also the -cpulimit command line option.
Date-related
dateformat
format
Set the current date format.
format must be a
date format from the
dates manual page
that includes month, day, and year, for which arithmetic is supported.
To use other arithmetic date formats (such as quarter notation)
specify the format in the
proc areadef
xscaletype or yscaletype attribute.
Example: dateformat: dd-mmm-yyyy
omitweekends
omit | adjust | yes | no
Allows date plotting as if
Saturdays and Sundays did not exist.
Mondays will follow Fridays directly.
Useful in certain business and work-related plots.
If omit, any Saturday or Sunday dates encountered will be considered invalid and omitted;
however they will not be reported unless the -showbad command line option is used.
If omit is set then Saturday or Sunday dates can generate a bad date error in some circumstances,
such as when given in an axis range.
If adjust or yes, any Saturday or Sunday dates encountered will be silently adjusted
to the nearest weekday. This is more lenient than omit, and avoids the possibility of
a bad date error.
pivotyear
yy
Set the two digit year that should be used to convert
two-digit years to four-digit years. If two-digit years are
used, year values that are less than the pivot year are assumed
to be 21st century years. Default is 77.
Example: pivotyear: 50
months
list
Specify the three-character month abbreviations to be used, all in lower case,
beginning with the first month.
Default is the English (jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec).
Example (Spanish) (must all be on one line):
months: ene feb mar abr pue jun jul ago sep oct nov dic
months.abbrev
list
short month names, capitalized for presentation, begining with the first month.
Default is English (Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec).
Example (Spanish) (must all be on one line):
months.abbrev: Ene Feb Mar Abr Pue Jun Jul Ago Sep Oct Nov Dic
months.full
list
full month names, capitalized for presentation.
Example (Spanish) (must all be on one line):
months.full: Enero Febrero Marzo Abril Mayo Junio Julio Agosto Septiembre Octubre Noviembre Diciembre
weekdays
list
three-character weekday abbreviations, capitalized for presentation,
beginning with Sunday.
Example (French): weekdays: Dim Lun Mar Mer Jeu Ven Sam
Example (Spanish): weekdays: Dom Lun Mar Mie Jue Vie Sab
lazydates
month | day | both
Allow handling of dates where the day component
or the month component is not known. See
dates
for further discussion of lazy dates.
strictdatelengths
yes | no
Default is no.
Use yes to ensure that malformed date values will be detected--
for example, if the date format is mm/dd/yyyy a date value such as 03/04/2001
would be ok but 3/4/2001 would result in an error.
If this attribute is no, format checking is relaxed, and the latter case above would be ok.
dtsep
character
Date / time separator character for datetime data items.
By default this is dot .. However ISO8601 uses T, eg. 29Mar03T03:16:00 ..
This character should be one that never appears in the dates or times themselves.
Example: dtsep: T
