Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Ethan A Merritt Newsgroups: comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot Subject: Re: [meta] Re: Xtics offset Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:26:10 -0700 Organization: University of Washington Lines: 86 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Injection-Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:24:31 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="8e86a57dfa599721f116da4577f3d1af"; logging-data="18603"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/ZRcGa8WDMj+8dDjIzM7fO" User-Agent: KNode/4.10.5 Cancel-Lock: sha1:al8XvXVbVRJvmv4u3g9QySitSdA= Xref: csiph.com comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot:3039 People use gnuplot for an amazing variety of applications. I am continually surprised at where I come across it, and at what people tell me they use it for. Probably no one person has ever made use of all the options, settings, features, and quirks that have accummulated in the gnuplot code. The point I am trying to make is that you should not assume that what you are trying to do lies on some well-trodden path from which many previous users have found and removed all the obstacles and bugs. In this case you have tripped over a behavior that has been there for the last 10 years, when the "offset" option was added for "set tics". Is it a bug? yeah Is it fixable? probably Are you really the first one to hit it? I don't know, but I see no previous bug reports on the tracker. Either nobody tried this or they found a work-around and didn't bother to report it. That doesn't match the profile I would expect for a "severe" bug - more like an unexpected restriction in a little-used feature. Anyhow, it's got a tracker number now, and will probably get a fix in due time: https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/bugs/1662/ - Ethan Janis Papanagnou wrote: > On 16.08.2015 14:49, Karl-Friedrich Ratzsch wrote: >> Am 16.08.2015 um 14:03 schrieb Janis Papanagnou: >>> My apologies. But I really couldn't see that an "illogical behaviour" >>> gnuplot-bug was the reason. My working thesis was that I missed >>> something, despite having read the docs and tried a lot in a trial and >>> error fashion. And since I assumed folks here are experienced, they can >>> quickly point me to the error I made. >>> >>> Usually it's good to focus on the specific observable issue; if one >>> makes a bulky post that's usually also not what people like reading. >> >> Of course you should be succinct, but you definitely need to tell >> what exactly you tried and didn't work. > > The point is (since I didn't knew it's a bug) I tried so many variants > that, for one, I couldn't post every variant I tried, and second, the > final version (the one that finally didn't threw the error message) had > that absolute offset (i.e. without 'first'). I posted what didn't work > in the last version, which I had to believe was closest to the correct > implementation. > > The problem, as already said, was this "illogical [gnuplot] behaviour". > Don't expect that illogical behaviour (coupling of X specs with Y specs) > would make it sensible for posters to provide (presumedly) "unrelated" > information. In one case it could be good, in most other cases it would > be considered bulky irrelevance so that people don't want to read it at > all. > >> Otherwise people are >> inclined to think you're just _saying_ you read the docs and tried >> to solve it, and bark "RTFM!" at you. > > I still think people should not "think" what I might have omitted to do > ("RTFM") if that "thought" results in non-informative trollish replies. > If some folks start with a "bark" instead of trying to help, well, that > tells more about those folks than about anything else. If information > is missing - and the experts here are certainly the ones who could tell > best! -, then a polite request to post the whole code (if necessary or > helpful) would certainly be the simplest reply, and least time-wasting. > >> >> The docs clearly give the solution (specify the coordinate system), >> but we didn't know it breaks with logscales, didn't even know you >> were using a logscale. So we concluded you hadn't read it. > > That the problem was actually related to those (presumedly) unrelated > entities was not obvious. Mind, I am only a very casual gnuplot user, > not an expert like many of you here. > > Janis -- Ethan A Merritt Biomolecular Structure Center, K-428 Health Sciences Bldg MS 357742, University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742