How to create a data file for gnuplot

Question

I m trying to make a graph with gnuplot  I specified my xrange  yrange  and labels  but when I typed in the following command      gnuplot  plot  data txt  using 1 2 with lines   gnuplot tells me      warning  Skipping unreadable file  data txt  No data in plot    I don t understand how my data file is unreadable  This is what my data txt looks like   X       Y   I didn t enter X and Y into my text file   10000   0 030 5000    0 02 1000    0 012   I know I must be doing something wrong -- this is my first time using gnuplot  I tried doing a Google search on how to make a proper data txt file turns up zilch      EDIT   I feel like this may sound strange to ask at a programming Q amp A site  but what should a typical text file w data look like  I m no computer programmer  just an undergrad trying to plot a graph for her biochemistry class

User · Answer

I had the same issue when tried to open the file using Plot->Data filename... option provided in the version for Windows 7 (by the way, it worked fine on another computer with the same version of the OP system).

Then I tried to change directory and save the .plt file, but it didn't work either. Finally, I tried to tape manually as it was showed for Linux earlier in this queue of posts:

gnuplot > plot "./datafile.dat"

and it worked!

User · Answer

I was having the exact same issue  The problem that I was having is that I hadn t saved the  plt file that I was typing into yet  The fix  I saved the  plt file in the same directory as the data that I was trying to plot and suddenly it worked  If they are in the same directory  you don t even need to specify a path  you can just put in the file name   Below is exactly what was happening to me  and how I fixed it  The first line shows the problem we were both having  I saved in the second line  and the third line worked   gnuplot gt  plot  c  Documents and Settings User Desktop data dat           warning  Skipping unreadable file c  Documents and Settings User Desktop data dat          No data in plot  gnuplot gt  save  c  Documents and Settings User Desktop myfile plt   gnuplot gt  plot  c  Documents and Settings User Desktop data dat

User · Answer

Create your Datafile like this     X      Y 10000 0 0 01 100000 0 0 05 1000000 0 0 45   And plot it with    gnuplot -p -e  plot  filename dat     There is a good tutorial  http   www gnuplotting org introduction plotting-data

User · Answer

Either as most people answered  the file doesn t exist   you re not specifying the path correctly   Or  you re simply writing the syntax wrong  which you can t know unless you know what it should be like  right   especially when in the  help  itself  it s wrong    For gnuplot 4 6 0 on windows 7  terminal type set to windows  Make sure you specify the file s whole path to avoid looking for it where it s not  default seems to be  documents    Make sure you use this syntax   plot  path path desireddatafile txt    NOT  plot   lt  path path desireddatafile txt gt     NOR  plot  path path desireddatafile txt    also make sure your file is in the right format  like for  txt file format ANSI  not Unicode and such

User · Answer

Just go to the properties of your cmd exe shortcut and change the  start in  by adding the file name where you put all your   txt  files I had same problems and i put the whole file mane as  D  photon  in the  start in  of the properties and it worked Remember you have to put all your files in that folder otherwise you have to create many shortcuts for each data files Sorry for late reply

User · Answer

For future reference  I had the same problem    warning  Skipping unreadable file   under Linux  The reason was that I love using Tab-completing and in gnuplot this added a whitespace at the end that I did not really notice  gnuplot gt  plot    datafile txt

User · Answer

This error usually means the file couldn t be found    Can you see the file from the command line     Try specifying the full pathname   check line ending type  use 0x0d   is file open in another program  do you have read access to it

User · Answer

plot  data txt  using 1 2 with lines    works for me   Do you actually have blank lines in your data file   That will cause an empty plot   Can you see a plot without data   Like plot x x   If not  then your terminal might not be set up correctly

[gnuplot] How to create a data file for gnuplot?

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