Re: gnuplot: plotting each point in different color
Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
I did:
set palette
splot '3cols.dat' us 1:2:3 w p palette
I don't know if that's what you want?
Thanks, that worked.
The knowledgeable soul told you to read the manual.
Yes, I know. The usual 'RTFM'. Well, maybe I should put a few words here.
First, he suggested to see "help plot with". But plot command doesn't
work here. So I am thinking "this guru has told me to RTFM about the
'plot' command, but this command does not work with the z-value, what is
going on here?". I was a bit confused. Next, I asked how to use the plot
command instead. I never got a reply that that won't work. Just saying
that plot won't work, splot is the command to use but remove "set pm3d"
would have sufficed. But "gurus" cannot do this and love to admonish the
dumb-user-who-does-not-want-to-RTFM.
Now, usually, I would not avoid RTFM. And it is quite common for the
experienced users in the Linux community to make the assumption that the
other person is lazy and wants to be *always* spoon fed (BTW, it is
thankfully uncommon in this list, to be fair). I have had my share of
those curt commands when I was starting out learning my ways around
Linux related applications -- never liked it and never practiced such an
attitude toward new users unless the new user is *really* trying to
shirk work.
However, such "gurus" fail to understand, rather do not want to accept,
that the person asking the query might not be in a situation where s/he
can read the manual but is quite capable to do so under normal
circumstances. When I asked that question, I was pressed for time and
had a bunch of other stuff going on. Plus I was confused between plot
and splot commands' functionality by RTFMing hastily. So I asked for an
example.
Now, the person probably failed to see that I was new at this thing and
had already worked out an example and wanted some additional example
which worked without splot, or which solved my problem. I never got a
reply from him to that example, yet I got the RTFM stuff in the
newsgroup from him. If I had worked for the example, one would assume I
have already put some effort in to solving the problem. Given that and
that I am new to this should have been enough reason to not be curt
about RTFMing stuff anymore.
Long story short, the posts I posted and the example I listed should
have been sufficient for a reasonable person to not be condescending and
to just list a working example (it didn't take long for you to list
those two lines I am sure). But many people love to lengthen a thread by
repeating the RTFM mantra. If that is all one needed to do, why have
newsgroups in the first place, one would think.
Ah, feels better!
You'll want to read pp. 64ff. (For me this is more convenient, but of
course there are other ways to read the gzipped ps.)
Well, I had already read that portion (in the online documentation
though). But from gnuplot's documentation it appears that one should
have read *all* the relevant documentation also to understand any
portion of it. Textbooks do not have examples for no reason you see. I
was looking for one here too.
Well, there is my little rant.
thanks,
->HS
PS: I usually read the online documentation. Searching it via google is
much more fruitful than searching a PDF file. Obviously, one needs to be
online for that though.
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