configure gnuplot to handle timeseries like excel

Question

I am trying to graph events over time with gnuplot. Excel's default behavior produces a more readable graph.

I would like my graph from gnuplot to look like Excel's.

set terminal png size 1200,800
set xdata time
set timefmt "%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M"
set output "graph.png"
set xrange ["2015-02-01_08-54":"2015-02-01_23-20"]
set yrange [0:70]
set grid
set xlabel "24-Hour"
set ylabel "Events"
set title "Events"
plot "events.dat" using 1:2 index 0 title "events" with filledcurves ls 1

I've spent many hours manipulating source data and plot.conf, but it's not clear to me what Excel is doing differently.

Gnuplot Output:

gnuplot output

Excel Output:

Excel output

Dataset: pastebin.com/raw.php?i=AcdC3EEG

user3431540
– user3431540

2015-02-17 01:30:11 +00:00
Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 1:30 — user3431540
– user3431540, Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 1:30

Christoph · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-17 08:11:04Z

Excel plots with a wrong x-scale: it ignores the time values, and puts the values given in the first column at equidistant x-values as labels.

To get the same behavior with gnuplot, you must use xticlabel to place the values in the first column as tic labels, and use the row number (column 0) as x-values:

set xtics rotate by 90 right noenhanced
plot "events.dat" using 0:2:xticlabel(1) title "events" with filledcurves

Now, this would give you rather unreadable labels, because that are too many. With some tweaks you get a nicer result:

set terminal pngcairo size 1200,800
set output "graph.png"
set yrange [0:70]
set grid y
set xlabel "24-Hour"
set ylabel "Events"
set xtics out nomirror scale 0.5 rotate by 90 right font ',8' noenhanced
plot "events.dat" using 0:2:xticlabel(int($0) % 5 == 0 ? strcol(1) : '') title "events" with filledcurves

enter image description here

Disclaimer: Please use this script only to understand what Excel does and not to reproduce it, because it gives a very wrong impression of the actual time spans in which your events happen!

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

configure gnuplot to handle timeseries like excel

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related