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(gnuplot.info)Introduction

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 `gnuplot` (Note: gnuplot ) is a command-driven interactive function and data
 plotting program. It is case sensitive (commands and function names written in
 lowercase are not the same as those written in CAPS).  All command names may
 be abbreviated as long as the abbreviation is not ambiguous.  Any number of
 commands may appear on a line (with the exception that `load` (Note: load )
 or  `call` (Note: call ) must be the final command), separated by semicolons
 (;).  Strings are indicated with quotes. They may be either single or double
 quotation marks, e.g.,

       load "filename"
       cd 'dir'

 although there are some subtle differences (see `syntax` (Note: Syntax ) for
 more details).

 Any command-line arguments are assumed to be names of files containing
 `gnuplot` commands, with the exception of standard X11 arguments, which are
 processed first.  Each file is loaded with the `load` command, in the order
 specified.  `gnuplot` exits after the last file is processed.  When no load
 files are named, `gnuplot` enters into an interactive mode.  The special
 filename "-" is used to denote standard input.  See "help batch/interactive"
 for more details.

 Many `gnuplot` commands have multiple options.  These options must appear in
 the proper order, although unwanted ones may be omitted in most cases.  Thus
 if the entire command is "command a b c", then "command a c" will probably
 work, but "command c a" will fail.

 Commands may extend over several input lines by ending each line but the last
 with a backslash (\).  The backslash must be the _last_ character on each
 line.  The effect is as if the backslash and newline were not there.  That
 is, no white space is implied, nor is a comment terminated.  Therefore,
 commenting out a continued line comments out the entire command (see
 `comment`).  But note that if an error occurs somewhere on a multi-line
 command, the parser may not be able to locate precisely where the error is
 and in that case will not necessarily point to the correct line.

 In this document, curly braces ({}) denote optional arguments and a vertical
 bar (|) separates mutually exclusive choices.  `gnuplot` keywords or `help`
 (Note: help ) topics are indicated by backquotes or `boldface` (where
 available).  Angle brackets (<>) are used to mark replaceable tokens.  In many
 cases, a default value of the token will be taken for optional arguments if
 the token is omitted, but these cases are not always denoted with braces
 around the angle brackets.

 For on-line help on any topic, type `help` followed by the name of the topic
 or just `help` or `?` to get a menu of available topics.

 The new `gnuplot` user should begin by reading about `plotting`
 (Note: Plotting ) (if on-line, type `help plotting`).