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.\" other parameters are allowed: see man(7), man(1)
.TH plotit 1 "February 21, 2009" 
.\" Please adjust this date whenever revising the manpage.
.\"
.SH NAME
plotit \- experiment data visualization
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B plotit
-w FILE
.br
.B plotit
[-lp] -q FILE [\fIFILE\fR]...
.br
.B plotit
[-lp] Y FILE [FILE...]
.br
.B plotit
[-lp] X Y FILE [FILE...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B plotit
program is a simple plotting program which can draw line plots and stripcharts
using a command language similar to that of 
.B gnuplot.  
It can also make quick plots
of multiple data files from the command-line.  Wildcards may be used in the
file names.
.PP
The program takes optional expressions which can be used to manipulate data 
columns before plotting.  Expressions may be as simple as the designation of
a column to be plotted or may contain arithmetic expressions and functions. 
In the latter case the espression must be enclosed in 'single' or "double" 
quotation marks. Column numbers are designated by the at-sign character (@). 
A single expression is used for the Y axis of the plot.
.SH OPTIONS
.IP "-h, --help"
Print the usage and exit.
.IP "--version"
Print the version number and exit.
.IP "-w"
Watch the input file for commands to stripchart, or wait to read all of
stdin before plotting.  Only one file or \- for stdin may be specified with
this option.  No other options may be used in conjuction with this option.
.IP "-q"
Plot the first and second columns of each file.
.IP "-l"
Plot with lines.
.IP "-p"
Plot with points.
.SH EXAMPLES
.PP
Plot the second column versus the first of all three files with lines only.
.PP
.RS
plotit \-lq file1.dat file2.dat file3.dat
.RE
.PP
Plot the quotient of the third column and the second column versus the first
column of all files matching the pattern using points only.
.PP
.RS
plotit \-p '@3/@2' file??.dat
.RE
.PP
Plot the natural log of the second column divided by the third column versus
the fourth column.  By default these data are plotted with both lines and 
points.
.PP
.RS
plotit @4 'log(@2/@3)' file.dat
.RE
.SH AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Carlo Segre <segre@iit.edu>.