Xtics

Fine control of the major (labelled) tics on the x axis is possible with the set xtics command. The tics may be turned off with the set noxtics command, and may be turned on (the default state) with set xtics. Similar commands control the major tics on the other axes.

Syntax:

         set xtics {axis | border} {{no}mirror} \
                     { {<start>, <incr>{, <end>}} |
                     {({"<label>"} <pos> {, {"<label>"} <pos>}...)} }
         set ytics (same options)
         set ztics (same options)
         set x2tics (same options)
         set y2tics (same options)
         set noxtics
         etc.
         show xtics
         etc.

axis or border tells gnuplot to put the tics (both the tics themselves and the accompanying labels) along the axis or the border, respectively. mirror tells it to put unlabelled tics at the same positions on the opposite border. nomirror does what you think it does. The defaults are border mirror for tics on the x, y, x2, and y2 axes. For the z axis, the the {axis|border} option is not available and the default is nomirror. If you do want to mirror the z-axis tics, you might want to create a bit more room for them with set border.

The positions of the tics may be specified in either of two forms:

The <start>, <incr>, <end> form specifies that a series of tics will be plotted on the axis between the values <start> and <end> with an increment of <incr>. If <end> is not given, it is assumed to be infinity. The increment may be negative.

Example:

          set xtics 0,.5,10
makes tics at 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, ..., 9.5, 10.

The (''<label>'' <pos>, ...) form allows arbitrary tic positions or non-numeric tic labels. A set of tics is a set of positions, each with its own optional label. Note that the label is a string enclosed by quotes, and may be a constant string, such as ``hello'', or contain formatting information for the tic number (which is the same as the position), such as ''%3f clients''. See set format for more information about this case. The label may be made empty by specifying it as an empty string. If no string is given, the default label (numerical) is used. In this form, the tics do not need to be listed in numerical order.

Examples:

         set xtics ("low" 0, "medium" 50, "high" 100)
         set xtics (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024)
         set ytics ("bottom" 0, "" 10, "top" 20)

In the second example, all tics are labelled. In the third, only the end tics are labelled.

Tics will only be plotted when in range.

Minor (unlabelled) tics can be added by the set mxtics command.

In case of timeseries data, position values must be given as quoted dates or times according to the format timefmt.