GNUPlot Manual

36 SET-SHOW gnuplot 4.0 67
Tic-mark label numerical format specifiers
Format Explanation
%f floating point notation
%e or %E exponential notation; an ”e” or ”E” before the power
%g or %G the shorter of %e (or %E) and %f
%x or %X hex
%o or %O octal
%t mantissa to base 10
%l mantissa to base of current logscale
%s mantissa to base of current logscale; scientific power
%T power to base 10
%L power to base of current logscale
%S scientific power
%c character replacement for scientific power
%P multiple of pi
A ’scientific’ power is one such that the exponent is a multiple of three. Character replacement of
scientific powers ("%c") has been implemented for powers in the range -18 to +18. For numbers outside
of this range the format reverts to exponential.
Other acceptable modifiers (which come after the "%" but before the format specifier) are "-", which
left-justifies the number; "+", which forces all numbers to be explicitly signed; "#", which places a
decimal point after floats that have only zeroes following the decimal point; a positive integer, which
defines the field width; "0" (the digit, not the letter) immediately preceding the field width, which
indicates that leading zeroes are to be used instead of leading blanks; and a decimal point followed by
a non-negative integer, which defines the precision (the minimum number of digits of an integer, or the
number of digits following the decimal point of a float).
Some releases of ’printf’ may not support all of these modifiers but may also support others; in case of
doubt, check the appropriate documentation and then experiment.
Examples:
set format y "%t"; set ytics (5,10) # "5.0" and "1.0"
set format y "%s"; set ytics (500,1000) # "500" and "1.0"
set format y "+-12.3f"; set ytics(12345) # "+12345.000 "
set format y "%.2t*10^%+03T"; set ytic(12345)# "1.23*10^+04"
set format y "%s*10^{%S}"; set ytic(12345) # "12.345*10^{3}"
set format y "%s %cg"; set ytic(12345) # "12.345 kg"
set format y "%.0P pi"; set ytic(6.283185) # "2 pi"
set format y "%.0f%%"; set ytic(50) # "50%"
set log y 2; set format y ’%l’; set ytics (1,2,3)
#displays "1.0", "1.0" and "1.5" (since 3 is 1.5 * 2^1)
There are some problem cases that arise when numbers like 9.999 are printed with a format that requires
both rounding and a power.
If the data type for the axis is time/date, the format string must contain valid codes for the ’strftime’
function (outside of gnuplot, type "man strftime"). See set timefmt (p. 143) for a list of the allowed
input format codes.
36.21.2 Time/date specifiers
In time/date mode, the acceptable formats are: