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Groups > comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot > #3984

Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults?

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Hi Ethan,

thanks for the detailed explanations.

> Not bugs.
> ...

I understand this perspective, and I agree. 

Maybe my use case is just a bit weird: Assume I would collect gnuplot scripts from arbitrary users. Each user provides one or more separate gnuplot scripts, each script creates exactly one plot/graph. When creating these scripts the users assume that they start from a fresh gnuplot session with all values set to their defaults.

Now I want to place several of these user-provided plots in a multiplot (the order is determined dynamically at runtime, i.e. it cannot be predicted). For this I would either have to insert a "reset" before each user script (to consider the fact that each script assumes it runs in a default environment), or I would have to insert commands to put all settings to their defaults explicitly.

The "reset" approach does not work because it also destroys the multiplot environment, and the problems with the "explicit set values to defaults" approach are described in my previous post.

Also following your suggestion to use "set" commands that specify all possible options explicitly is problematic, because then I would have to parse the user provided scripts, understand all the set commands, find the values that were not explicitly given, and add the corresponding default values to the set commands. I think you get the point why I don't like this approach :)

(This description is not at all the real use case, but it describes the fundamental problem quite accurately).

I understand that my "problems" are actually not caused by bugs, just by a philosophy which does not fit my use case. Currently I see two ways for me:

  1) Execute each user script separately in a really clean environment (i.e. with a "reset" or whatever before them), and then find a non-gnuplot based way to put all of them onto a single page (i.e. emulating "multiplot" by myself).

  2) The gnuplot community agrees that there might be different kinds of "reset" commands: one that also affects a multiplot context, another one that resets everything EXCEPT the multiplot information, ... ideas welcome

Sorry for the lengthy post...

One last comment: your description of unset/set to hide/show a certain feature makes sense from user perspective. But in this case the documentation should be updates, because it describes the "unset" command like this:

> Options set using the set command may be returned to their default state by the corresponding unset command.

Obviously this is not true :-)

Thanks and regards
-stefan-

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Thread

How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-27 12:01 -0700
  Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? Ethan Merritt <eamerritt@gmail.com> - 2018-06-28 04:36 +0000
  Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-27 22:07 -0700
    Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-27 22:26 -0700
      Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-27 23:01 -0700
        Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? Ethan Merritt <sfeam@users.sf.net> - 2018-06-28 19:32 +0000
          Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-28 13:14 -0700
            Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-28 13:22 -0700
              Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? Karl Ratzsch <mail.kfr@gmx.net> - 2018-06-29 01:57 +0200
                Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-28 21:32 -0700
                Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? Ethan Merritt <eamerritt@gmail.com> - 2018-06-29 05:37 +0000
                Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? palme@kapott.org - 2018-06-29 00:27 -0700
                Re: How to reset configurations to their defaults? Ethan Merritt <eamerritt@gmail.com> - 2018-06-29 21:04 +0000

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