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Ploticus Scripts Handbook

The pl(1) command produces plots from scripts, eg: pl -png scat1.pl Gallery of script examples Quick start 1. Download the software, and install it. 2. Develop your script in a text editor (the script examples gallery can help) 3. Execute the pl command, eg: pl myscript -o gif > out.gif Writing scripts Introduction to scripts Script syntax Specifying procedures and attributes Variables Directives   #proc   #endproc   #procdef   #saveas   #clone         #set   #setifnotgiven   #call   #if   #ifspec         #for   #while   #loop   #break   #continue         #exit   #include   #cat   #return         #write   #shell   System variables Procs – basics proc getdata - get or specify plot data (usually required) proc areadef - define a scaled plotting area (usually required)                       perhaps using data-driven automatic scaling proc axis - render an axis (xaxis or yaxis) (usually required) proc categories - specify categories for a categorical axis (optional) proc page - set page-wide attributes, page breaks (optional) proc settings - overall settings for units, notations, etc. (optional) Procs – plotting data proc bars - bar graphs, histograms, error bars, floating bars, timelines proc boxplot - boxplots, box 'n'whisker plots proc catlines - an array of side-by-side lineplots, one per category proc curvefit - compute and draw a fitted curve to data points proc lineplot - line plots, curves, filled area under curve proc pie - pie graph proc rangesweep - range sweep proc scatterplot - scatterplots, various grid and data point displays proc tree - tree diagram using Newick data proc vector - vector plots, windbarbs proc venndisk - venn diagrams Procs – annotating proc annotate - ad hoc annotation proc legend - display a legend proc line - draw arbitrary lines proc rect - draw an arbitrary rectangle proc symbol - draw an arbitrary data point symbol Utility / advanced / obscure procs proc breakaxis - break an axis or bar, to display extreme values proc drawcommands - draw using command set proc image - incorporate an image (eg. a logo) proc legendentry - define a legend entry explicitly proc print - print contents of data fields, other uses proc processdata - data transformations     (totals, percents, mean and SD, counts, sums, cumulation, joins, rotations). proc pvalue - compute and display t test p values as annotation proc tabulate - perform tabulations & frequency distributions proc trailer - specify data at end of script proc usedata - set the current data set for plotting Functions For more advanced script writing... often very useful. Introduction plotting functions arithmetic functions string functions list handling functions date functions time functions misc functions Reference topics Data: Input data Data types and scaling Dates Times Plot attributes Units (absolute or scaled) Linedetails Symboldetails Textdetails Colors Fonts Conditional expressions for selecting data rows Other General usage notes: Imagemap, clickmap & mouseover text bubbles Paper-based reports Large-sized posters Pre-press work Config files: Creating a config file for settings you always want in effect