DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages
FEEDGNUPLOT(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation FEEDGNUPLOT(1)
NAME
feedgnuplot - General purpose pipe-oriented plotting tool
SYNOPSIS
Simple plotting of piped data:
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}'
2 1
4 4
6 9
8 16
10 25
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' |
feedgnuplot --lines --points --legend 0 "data 0" --title "Test plot" --y2 1
--terminal 'dumb 80,40' --exit
Test plot
10 ++------+--------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+------*A 25
+ + + + + + + + **#+
| : : : : : : data 0+**A*** |
| : : : : : : :** # |
9 ++.......................................................**.##....|
| : : : : : : ** :# |
| : : : : : : ** # |
| : : : : : :** ##: ++ 20
8 ++................................................A....#..........|
| : : : : : **: # : |
| : : : : : ** : ## : |
| : : : : : ** :# : |
| : : : : :** B : |
7 ++......................................**......##................|
| : : : : ** : ## : : ++ 15
| : : : : ** : # : : |
| : : : :** : ## : : |
6 ++..............................*A.......##.......................|
| : : : ** : ##: : : |
| : : : ** : # : : : |
| : : :** : ## : : : ++ 10
5 ++......................**........##..............................|
| : : ** : #B : : : |
| : : ** : ## : : : : |
| : :** : ## : : : : |
4 ++...............A.......###......................................|
| : **: ##: : : : : |
| : ** : ## : : : : : ++ 5
| : ** : ## : : : : : |
| :** ##B# : : : : : |
3 ++.....**..####...................................................|
| **#### : : : : : : |
| **## : : : : : : : |
B** + + + + + + + +
2 A+------+--------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+------++ 0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Simple real-time plotting example: plot how much data is received on
the wlan0 network interface in bytes/second (uses bash, awk and Linux):
$ while true; do sleep 1; cat /proc/net/dev; done |
gawk '/wlan0/ {if(b) {print $2-b; fflush()} b=$2}' |
feedgnuplot --lines --stream --xlen 10 --ylabel 'Bytes/sec' --xlabel seconds
DESCRIPTION
This is a flexible, command-line-oriented frontend to Gnuplot. It
creates plots from data coming in on STDIN or given in a filename
passed on the commandline. Various data representations are supported,
as is hardcopy output and streaming display of live data. A simple
example:
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' | feedgnuplot
You should see a plot with two curves. The "awk" command generates some
data to plot and the "feedgnuplot" reads it in from STDIN and generates
the plot. The "awk" invocation is just an example; more interesting
things would be plotted in normal usage. No commandline-options are
required for the most basic plotting. Input parsing is flexible; every
line need not have the same number of points. New curves will be
created as needed.
The most commonly used functionality of gnuplot is supported directly
by the script. Anything not directly supported can still be done with
options such as "--set", "--extracmds" "--style", etc. Arbitrary
gnuplot commands can be passed in with "--extracmds". For example, to
turn off the grid, you can pass in "--extracmds 'unset grid'". Commands
"--set" and "--unset" exists to provide nicer syntax, so this is
equivalent to passing "--unset grid". As many of these options as
needed can be passed in. To add arbitrary curve styles, use "--style
curveID extrastyle". Pass these more than once to affect more than one
curve.
To apply an extra style to all the curves that lack an explicit
"--style", pass in "--styleall extrastyle". In the most common case,
the extra style is "with something". To support this more simply, you
can pass in "--with something" instead of "--styleall 'with
something'". "--styleall" and "--with" are mutually exclusive.
Furthermore any curve-specific "--style" overrides the global
"--styleall" or "--with" setting.
Data formats
By default, each value present in the incoming data represents a
distinct data point, as demonstrated in the original example above (we
had 10 numbers in the input and 10 points in the plot). If requested,
the script supports more sophisticated interpretation of input data
Domain selection
If "--domain" is passed in, the first value on each line of input is
interpreted as the X-value for the rest of the data on that line.
Without "--domain" the X-value is the line number, and the first value
on a line is a plain data point like the others. Default is
"--nodomain". Thus the original example above produces 2 curves, with
1,2,3,4,5 as the X-values. If we run the same command with "--domain":
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' | feedgnuplot --domain
we get only 1 curve, with 2,4,6,8,10 as the X-values. As many points as
desired can appear on a single line, but all points on a line are
associated with the X-value at the start of that line.
Curve indexing
By default, each column represents a separate curve. This is fine
unless sparse data is to be plotted. With the "--dataid" option, each
point is represented by 2 values: a string identifying the curve, and
the value itself. If we add "--dataid" to the original example:
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' | feedgnuplot --dataid --autolegend
we get 5 different curves with one point in each. The first column, as
produced by "awk", is 2,4,6,8,10. These are interpreted as the IDs of
the curves to be plotted. The "--autolegend" option adds a legend using
the given IDs to label the curves. The IDs need not be numbers; generic
strings are accepted. As many points as desired can appear on a single
line. "--domain" can be used in conjunction with "--dataid".
Multi-value style support
Depending on how gnuplot is plotting the data, more than one value may
be needed to represent the range of a single point. Basic 2D plots have
2 numbers representing each point: 1 domain and 1 range. But if
plotting with "--circles", for instance, then there's an extra range
value: the radius. A similar situation exists with "--colormap" where
each point contains the position and the color. There are other gnuplot
styles that require more data (such as error bars), but none of these
are directly supported by the script. They can still be used, however,
by specifying the specific style with "--style", and specifying how
many values are needed for each point with "--rangesizeall" or
"--rangesize" or "--extraValuesPerPoint". Those options that specify
the range size are required only for styles not explicitly supported by
feedgnuplot; supported styles do the right thing automatically.
More examples: if making a 2d plot of y error bars where gnuplot
expects a (x,y,ydelta) tuple for each point, you want "--rangesizeall
2" because you have one domain value (x) and 2 range values (y,ydelta).
Gnuplot can also plot lopsided y errorbars by giving a tuple
(x,y,ylow,yhigh). This is similar as before, but you want
"--rangesizeall 3" instead.
3D data
To plot 3D data, pass in "--3d". "--domain" MUST be given when plotting
3D data to avoid domain ambiguity. If 3D data is being plotted, there
are by definition 2 domain values instead of one (Z as a function of X
and Y instead of Y as a function of X). Thus the first 2 values on each
line are interpreted as the domain instead of just 1. The rest of the
processing happens the same way as before.
Time/date data
If the input data domain is a time/date, this can be interpreted with
"--timefmt". This option takes a single argument: the format to use to
parse the data. The format is documented in 'set timefmt' in gnuplot,
although the common flags that "strftime" understands are generally
supported. The backslash sequences in the format are not supported, so
if you want a tab, put in a tab instead of \t. Whitespace in the format
is supported. When this flag is given, some other options act a little
bit differently:
o "--xlen" is an integer in seconds
o "--xmin" and "--xmax" must use the format passed in to "--timefmt"
Using this option changes both the way the input is parsed and the way
the x-axis tics are labelled. Gnuplot tries to be intelligent in this
labelling, but it doesn't always do what the user wants. The labelling
can be controlled with the gnuplot "set format" command, which takes
the same type of format string as "--timefmt". Example:
$ sar 1 -1 |
awk '$1 ~ /..:..:../ && $8 ~/^[0-9\.]*$/ {print $1,$8; fflush()}' |
feedgnuplot --stream --domain
--lines --timefmt '%H:%M:%S'
--set 'format x "%H:%M:%S"'
This plots the 'idle' CPU consumption against time.
Note that while gnuplot supports the time/date on any axis, feedgnuplot
currently supports it only as the x-axis domain. This may change in the
future.
Real-time streaming data
To plot real-time data, pass in the "--stream [refreshperiod]" option.
Data will then be plotted as it is received. The plot will be updated
every "refreshperiod" seconds. If the period isn't specified, a 1Hz
refresh rate is used. To refresh at specific intervals indicated by the
data, set the refreshperiod to 0 or to 'trigger'. The plot will then
only be refreshed when a data line 'replot' is received. This 'replot'
command works in both triggered and timed modes, but in triggered mode,
it's the only way to replot. Look in "Special data commands" for more
information.
To plot only the most recent data (instead of all the data), "--xlen
windowsize" can be given. This will create an constantly-updating,
scrolling view of the recent past. "windowsize" should be replaced by
the desired length of the domain window to plot, in domain units
(passed-in values if "--domain" or line numbers otherwise). If the
domain is a time/date via "--timefmt", then "windowsize" is and integer
in seconds.
Special data commands
If we are reading streaming data, the input stream can contain special
commands in addition to the raw data. Feedgnuplot looks for these at
the start of every input line. If a command is detected, the rest of
the line is discarded. These commands are
"replot"
This command refreshes the plot right now, instead of waiting for
the next refresh time indicated by the timer. This command works in
addition to the timed refresh, as indicated by "--stream
[refreshperiod]".
"clear"
This command clears out the current data in the plot. The plotting
process continues, however, to any data following the "clear".
"exit"
This command causes feedgnuplot to exit.
Hardcopy output
The script is able to produce hardcopy output with "--hardcopy
outputfile". The output type can be inferred from the filename, if .ps,
.eps, .pdf, .svg or .png is requested. If any other file type is
requested, "--terminal" must be passed in to tell gnuplot how to make
the plot.
Self-plotting data files
This script can be used to enable self-plotting data files. There are 2
ways of doing this: with a shebang (#!) or with inline perl data.
Self-plotting data with a #!
A self-plotting, executable data file "data" is formatted as
$ cat data
#!/usr/bin/feedgnuplot --lines --points
2 1
4 4
6 9
8 16
10 25
12 36
14 49
16 64
18 81
20 100
22 121
24 144
26 169
28 196
30 225
This is the shebang (#!) line followed by the data, formatted as
before. The data file can be plotted simply with
$ ./data
The caveats here are that on Linux the whole #! line is limited to 127
characters and that the full path to feedgnuplot must be given. The 127
character limit is a serious limitation, but this can likely be
resolved with a kernel patch. I have only tried on Linux 2.6.
Self-plotting data with perl inline data
Perl supports storing data and code in the same file. This can also be
used to create self-plotting files:
$ cat plotdata.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
open PLOT, "| feedgnuplot --lines --points" or die "Couldn't open plotting pipe";
while( <DATA> )
{
my @xy = split;
print PLOT "@xy\n";
}
__DATA__
2 1
4 4
6 9
8 16
10 25
12 36
14 49
16 64
18 81
20 100
22 121
24 144
26 169
28 196
30 225
This is especially useful if the logged data is not in a format
directly supported by feedgnuplot. Raw data can be stored after the
__DATA__ directive, with a small perl script to manipulate the data
into a useable format and send it to the plotter.
ARGUMENTS
o --"[no]domain"
If enabled, the first element of each line is the domain variable.
If not, the point index is used
o --"[no]dataid"
If enabled, each data point is preceded by the ID of the data set
that point corresponds to. This ID is interpreted as a string, NOT
as just a number. If not enabled, the order of the point is used.
As an example, if line 3 of the input is "0 9 1 20" then
o "--nodomain --nodataid" would parse the 4 numbers as points in
4 different curves at x=3
o "--domain --nodataid" would parse the 4 numbers as points in 3
different curves at x=0. Here, 0 is the x-variable and 9,1,20
are the data values
o "--nodomain --dataid" would parse the 4 numbers as points in 2
different curves at x=3. Here 0 and 1 are the data IDs and 9
and 20 are the data values
o "--domain --dataid" would parse the 4 numbers as a single point
at x=0. Here 9 is the data ID and 1 is the data value. 20 is an
extra value, so it is ignored. If another value followed 20,
we'd get another point in curve ID 20
o "--[no]3d"
Do [not] plot in 3D. This only makes sense with "--domain". Each
domain here is an (x,y) tuple
o --"timefmt [format]"
Interpret the X data as a time/date, parsed with the given format
o "--colormap"
Show a colormapped xy plot. Requires extra data for the color.
zmin/zmax can be used to set the extents of the colors.
Automatically sets the "--rangesize".
o "--stream [period]"
Plot the data as it comes in, in realtime. If period is given,
replot every period seconds. If no period is given, replot at 1Hz.
If the period is given as 0 or 'trigger', replot only when the
incoming data dictates this. See the "Real-time streaming data"
section of the man page.
o "--[no]lines"
Do [not] draw lines to connect consecutive points
o "--[no]points"
Do [not] draw points
o "--circles"
Plot with circles. This requires a radius be specified for each
point. Automatically sets the "--rangesize". "Not" supported for
3d plots.
o "--title xxx"
Set the title of the plot
o "--legend curveID legend"
Set the label for a curve plot. Use this option multiple times for
multiple curves. With "--dataid", curveID is the ID. Otherwise,
it's the index of the curve, starting at 0
o "--autolegend"
Use the curve IDs for the legend. Titles given with "--legend"
override these
o "--xlen xxx"
When using "--stream", sets the size of the x-window to plot. Omit
this or set it to 0 to plot ALL the data. Does not make sense with
3d plots. Implies "--monotonic"
o "--xmin/xmax/ymin/ymax/y2min/y2max/zmin/zmax xxx"
Set the range for the given axis. These x-axis bounds are ignored
in a streaming plot. The y2-axis bound do not apply in 3d plots.
The z-axis bounds apply only to 3d plots or colormaps.
o "--xlabel/ylabel/y2label/zlabel xxx"
Label the given axis. The y2-axis label does not apply to 3d plots
while the z-axis label applies only to 3d plots.
o "--y2 xxx"
Plot the data specified by this curve ID on the y2 axis. Without
"--dataid", the ID is just an ordered 0-based index. Does not apply
to 3d plots. Can be passed multiple times, or passed a comma-
separated list. By default the y2-axis curves look the same as the
y-axis ones. I.e. the viewer of the resulting plot has to be told
which is which via an axes label, legend, etc. Prior to version
1.25 of feedgnuplot the curves plotted on the y2 axis were drawn
with a thicker line. This is no longer the case, but that behavior
can be brought back by passing something like
--y2 curveid --style curveid 'linewidth 3'
o "--histogram curveID"
Set up a this specific curve to plot a histogram. The bin width is
given with the "--binwidth" option (assumed 1.0 if omitted).
"--histogram" does not touch the drawing style. It is often desired
to plot these with boxes, and this must be explicitly requested by
"--with boxes". This works with "--domain" and/or "--stream", but
in those cases the x-value is used only to cull old data because of
"--xlen" or "--monotonic". I.e. the x-values are not drawn in any
way. Can be passed multiple times, or passed a comma- separated
list
o "--binwidth width"
The width of bins when making histograms. This setting applies to
ALL histograms in the plot. Defaults to 1.0 if not given.
o "--histstyle style"
Normally, histograms are generated with the 'smooth freq' gnuplot
style. "--histstyle" can be used to select different 'smooth'
settings. Allowed are 'unique', 'cumulative' and 'cnormal'.
'unique' indicates whether a bin has at least one item in it:
instead of counting the items, it'll always report 0 or 1.
'cumulative' is the integral of the "normal" histogram. 'cnormal'
is like 'cumulative', but rescaled to end up at 1.0.
o "--style curveID style"
Additional styles per curve. With "--dataid", curveID is the ID.
Otherwise, it's the index of the curve, starting at 0. Use this
option multiple times for multiple curves. "--styleall" does not
apply to curves that have a "--style"
o "--curvestyle curveID"
Synonym for "--style"
o "--styleall xxx"
Additional styles for all curves that have no "--style". This is
overridden by any applicable "--style". Exclusive with "--with".
o "--curvestyleall xxx"
Synonym for "--styleall"
o "--with xxx"
Same as "--styleall", but prefixed with "with". Thus
--with boxes
is equivalent to
--styleall 'with boxes'
Exclusive with "--styleall".
o "--extracmds xxx"
Additional commands to pass on to gnuplot verbatim. These could
contain extra global styles for instance. Can be passed multiple
times.
o "--set xxx"
Additional 'set' commands to pass on to gnuplot verbatim. "--set 'a
b c'" will result in gnuplot seeing a "set a b c" command. Can be
passed multiple times.
o "--unset xxx"
Additional 'unset' commands to pass on to gnuplot verbatim.
"--unset 'a b c'" will result in gnuplot seeing a "unset a b c"
command. Can be passed multiple times.
o "--square"
Plot data with aspect ratio 1. For 3D plots, this controls the
aspect ratio for all 3 axes
o "--square_xy"
For 3D plots, set square aspect ratio for ONLY the x,y axes
o "--hardcopy xxx"
If not streaming, output to a file specified here. Format inferred
from filename, unless specified by "--terminal"
o "--terminal xxx"
String passed to 'set terminal'. No attempts are made to validate
this. "--hardcopy" sets this to some sensible defaults if
--hardcopy is given .png, .pdf, .ps, .eps or .svg. If any other
file type is desired, use both "--hardcopy" and "--terminal"
o "--maxcurves xxx"
The maximum allowed number of curves. This is 100 by default, but
can be reset with this option. This exists purely to prevent perl
from allocating all of the system's memory when reading bogus data
o "--monotonic"
If "--domain" is given, checks to make sure that the x- coordinate
in the input data is monotonically increasing. If a given
x-variable is in the past, all data currently cached for this curve
is purged. Without "--monotonic", all data is kept. Does not make
sense with 3d plots. No "--monotonic" by default. The data is
replotted before being purged
o "--rangesize curveID xxx"
The options "--rangesizeall", "--rangesize" and
"--extraValuesPerPoint" set the number of values are needed to
represent each point being plotted (see "Multi-value style support"
above). These options are only needed if unknown styles are used,
with "--styleall" or "--with" for instance.
"--rangesize" is used to set how many values are needed to
represent the range of a point for a particular curve. This
overrides any defaults that may exist for this curve only.
o "--rangesizeall xxx"
Like "--rangesize", but applies to all the curves.
"--extraValuesPerPoint xxx"
Like "--rangesizeall", but instead of overriding the default, adds
to it. For example, if plotting non-lopsided y errorbars gnuplot
wants (x,y,ydelta) tuples. These can be specified both with
"--rangesizeall 2" (because there are 2 range values) or
"--extraValuesPerPoint 1" (because there's 1 more value than
usual).
This option is only needed if unknown styles are used, with
"--styleall" or "--with" for instance.
o "--dump"
Instead of printing to gnuplot, print to STDOUT. Very useful for
debugging. It is possible to send the output produced this way to
gnuplot directly.
o "--exit"
Terminate the feedgnuplot process after passing data to gnuplot.
The window will persist but will not be interactive. Without this
option feedgnuplot keeps running and must be killed by the user.
Note that this option works only with later versions of gnuplot and
only with some gnuplot terminals.
o "--geometry"
If using X11, specifies the size, position of the plot window
o "--version"
Print the version and exit
RECIPES
Basic plotting of piped data
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}'
2 1
4 4
6 9
8 16
10 25
$ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' |
feedgnuplot --lines --points --legend 0 "data 0" --title "Test plot" --y2 1
Realtime plot of network throughput
Looks at wlan0 on Linux.
$ while true; do sleep 1; cat /proc/net/dev; done |
gawk '/wlan0/ {if(b) {print $2-b; fflush()} b=$2}' |
feedgnuplot --lines --stream --xlen 10 --ylabel 'Bytes/sec' --xlabel seconds
Realtime plot of battery charge in respect to time
Uses the result of the "acpi" command.
$ while true; do acpi; sleep 15; done |
perl -nE 'BEGIN{ $| = 1; } /([0-9]*)%/; say join(" ", time(), $1);' |
feedgnuplot --stream --ymin 0 --ymax 100 --lines --domain --xlabel 'Time' --timefmt '%s' --ylabel "Battery charge (%)"
Realtime plot of temperatures in an IBM Thinkpad
Uses "/proc/acpi/ibm/thermal", which reports temperatures at various
locations in a Thinkpad.
$ while true; do cat /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal | awk '{$1=""; print}' ; sleep 1; done |
feedgnuplot --stream --xlen 100 --lines --autolegend --ymax 100 --ymin 20 --ylabel 'Temperature (deg C)'
Plotting a histogram of file sizes in a directory
$ ls -l | awk '{print $5/1e6}' |
feedgnuplot --histogram 0 --with boxes --ymin 0 --xlabel 'File size (MB)' --ylabel Frequency
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This program is originally based on the driveGnuPlots.pl script from
Thanassis Tsiodras. It is available from his site at
<http://users.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/gnuplotStreaming.html>
REPOSITORY
<https://github.com/dkogan/feedgnuplot>
AUTHOR
Dima Kogan, "<dima@secretsauce.net>"
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2011-2012 Dima Kogan.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.
See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.
perl v5.20.2 2014-05-14 FEEDGNUPLOT(1)