The C Users' Group Library 1994 August/wc-cdrom-cusersgrouplibrary-1994-08.iso/vol_200/266_01/plox.doc

Text File | 1990-07-21 | 16KB | 313 lines

                       micro PLOX                          PLOX.DOC
                       Version 5.0

                       Bob Patton
                  1713 Parkcrest Terrace
                   Arlington, TX 76012
                       July 1990

Micro PLOX is a plotting language that gives the user direct control
of the plotting features of a dot matrix printer or a graphics
monitor.  It was designed with graphs in mind, but it can be used
to make forms and straight line drawings.

It will draw lines in various patterns and print text in 2 compact
fonts.  The maximum area of a single drawing is 7 inches wide by
5 inches high which is roughly half of a standard typewriter page
with margins allowed.  From data it will draw line or bar graphs.
The lines may be of various patterns and colors and the points may
be shown with a symbol or not.  The bars may have various hatching
patterns.  The text may be located at a specific location with a
TITLE or may be located relative to data with a LABEL.

Statements in PLOX consist of a keyword (in capitals recommended for
readability) followed by options in lower case and digits. (Text strings
should be upper and lower case as wanted.  File names may be upper or
lower case.) For example:

  *    Sample stock plot
  PIC size 7 by 2.5  outline
  TITLE at 3.5,2.4 text NORTHEAST INVESTOR'S TRUST
  AREA at .5,.5  size 6 by 1.8
  AXIS left  to 30
  AXIS below  from 85 to 88 boxes=3
  LINE file  B:NOEAST.DAT  item 1 is yymmdd

PLOX is interpretive;  items specified are drawn as they are
encountered so the statements must be pretty much in the order
shown.  PIC must come first as it starts the process and sets
the reference point for further dimensions given.

TITLE may come anyplace but its location will be affected by what
has come before it. In the example above the title is centered at
coordinates 3.5,2.4 inches with respect to the whole picture which
has a size of 7 inches wide by 2.5 inches high.

An AREA is a rectangular field in which to put plots.  It has a
location (of the lower, left corner) and a size.  Any titles given
after an AREA are located with respect to the location of the AREA.

Both an x and a y AXIS must be specified to scale the data.  An AXIS
is presumed to start at 0 unless shown otherwise by a "from" option.
You may specify the number of scale divsions as "boxes" or let PLOX
do it for you.

A LINE may now be drawn from a data file with a pairs of x and y data
points.  You must give the name of the data file.  You may have date
data in the form yymmdd and so specify to PLOX.  These will be converted
to YY.fract for plotting.  For example 870630 might be converted to
87.496.

BARS may also be drawn from x and y data pairs.  The bars may be
horizontal or vertical and will normally extend from the data point to
the axis, but you may specify a different base (in data-units, not inches).
You may specify the width of a bar (in inches).

You can in general have more than one of each statement (except PIC).
Just remember that order counts.  You can have many LINEs in an AREA.
You can have many AREAs in a PIC, and you can put TITLEs anywhere.
You can even put more than 2 axes on a area, but the data plotted will
be scaled to the last x and last y AXIS given.

The options on a given statement may come in any order and may be spaced
to suit yourself.  The only current exception is the text of a title
which must be last and may be on a separate TITLE statement if it is
long.  The title is drawn as soon as the text is encountered.  There are
optional punctuation and filler words for readability.  You may use
commas and equal signs anywhere.  The words "by", "is", and "are" are
ignored.   Comments may be included with PLOX statements by starting
the comment line with an asterisk.

              Getting a plot printed

This is a two step process.  Write the PLOX statements and provide a
data file with the numbers to be plotted.  A naming convention is
recommended.  We suggest .PIC for the PLOX statements and .DAT for
data files.  Execute the PLOX command giving the name of your file
of PLOX statements:

               PLOX MYPLOX.PIC

This will create a binary file of plot commands named PLOTCOM.DAT.
Then run program PLOTEPS or PLOTEPS2 which will output directly to
your printer.  As the name suggests this device driver is for Epson
printers, but device drivers for graphics monitors are also provided.

               PLOTEPS   or  PLOTEPS2

That's all there is to it.  PLOTEPS expects its input in PLOTCOM.DAT
which is a little limiting, but simple to run and less error prone.
There is really not much need to save the binary file of plot commands
since it can always be recreated from the PLOX statements, but you
could rename it if you did want to keep it.

If your printer ribbon is worn or you are making a chart for photo
copying you can add the letter d after the command to get dark print
which is done by just printing each line twice.  For example:

              PLOTEPS d

You can also view the chart on a graphics monitor if you have one.
Simply use PLOTHERC, PLOTCGA, PLOTEGA, or PLOTVGA as the second
command.  You can use this to debug charts or as the only way you
look at charts.  If you are debugging for final print, note that the
binary file still exists so all you have to do is issue a PLOTEPS
to get the printed version once you like what you see on the screen.
We recommend PLOTEGA even on a VGA monitor as the lettering size is
more pleasing.

While PLOX is running it will echo your statements and print any errors
found underneath them.  You can then correct and rerun before you plot.


                    Data for plotting

The data to be plotted must be columns of numbers separated by one or
more blanks.  You may have up to 14 columns in any one file.  Dates may
be given in the form yymmdd and they will be translated to YY.frac for
plotting if the plotting statement (e.g., LINE) specifies it.  Years
less than 50 will have 100 added to allow for dates in the first half
of the 21st century.  Missing numbers may be shown by a single asterisk
(*) and they will be skipped.

The columns are referenced by number (1, 2, etc.) from left to right
and are known as items to PLOX.  If not specified, PLOX assumes that
item 1 is the x-value and item 2 the y-value to be plotted.  Plotting
statements may specify which items to plot as:

       items ix iy

where ix is the x-value column number and iy the y-value column number.
Thus with 3 sets of numbers to plot versus the same set of dates you
could put the dates in column 1 and the numbers in columns 2, 3, and 4
and plot them as follows.

   LINE file DATA.DAT items 1 2  item 1 is yymmdd
   LINE file DATA.DAT items 1 3  item 1 is yymmdd
   LINE file DATA.DAT items 1 4  item 1 is yymmdd

You may include comment lines in data by starting the line with a slash.
Why not an asterisk for consistency?  Because asterisk is reserved to
show missing values and this in turn is to be consistent with some
other languages (including main frame PLOX) as was the use of
asterisk for comments in statements to begin with.  Sorry about that.

You may further elect to have the data for any single plot
immediately follow the plot statement (LINE or BARS) by specifying
file *.  Such data must be ended by a dollar sign ($) in column one.
In this case it would be pointless to have more than 2 columns of
data as that's all you can plot with a single statement.  See the
legend data of BIKE.PIC for an example of this.

Another option is to give the data file name as @.  Then you may put
the actual file to use on the PLOX command line, or if you don't put
it there you will be prompted for it.  This may be combined with PLOX
statements allowed in the data file to let you make any number of
similar charts from a single picture description using a different data
file for each chart. See the FUNDINFO.PIC file and associated data files
FUND01.DAT and FUND02.DAT for examples of this.

                 Other PLOX features

The separate reference summary document (PLOX.REF) shows the full
syntax of the language.  Most of the notation should be clear at this
point, but here are a few further notes.

As well as setting the size and optionally outlining a PIC, you may
give margin = <number>.  The number is the column number on the printer
in which you want the picture to start drawing.  The default is 5.  The
expected use for this is to put two small pictures side by side or as a
crude way to mix text and graphics on the same line.  In either case you
will have to manually roll down the paper on the printer to draw the
chart that sits beside an existing chart or text.

A TITLE by default is centered on its coordinate, but you may specify left
or right justified.  The text is horizontal by default, but you may
specify vertical.  In this case the letters are still upright but stacked
on top of each other and the lettering starts at the given coordinate
and goes down.  There are 2 fonts: font 1 (3 by 5 pixels, upper case)
and font 2 (5 by 6, upper and lower case).

An AREA may be outlined if you wish.  This is one way to create forms.

An AXIS must located relative to an AREA.  Its range is given as
from value-1 to value-2, but value-1 can be omitted and will default
to zero.  If no range is given 0 to 100 is assumed.  You can specify
the number of scale divisions as boxes or you can let the internal
scaling routines choose for you.  The scaling routines do a pretty
good job most of the time, but you might not always like their choice.
Notice that an AXIS can be made invisible.  What for?  Well a series
of areas right on top of each other might just share one printed axis
for space saving.  Further you can use this feature to make simple line
drawings.   Put ranges on the invisible axes that represent the span
covered in inches.  Then make a set of data points that are the
coordinates of the line drawing and draw a line through them.

A LINE may be solid or one of several dot or dash patterns.  Be aware
though that dot matrix lines at angles do not show their patterns well.
The dotted and spotted patterns are probably the best to use on a slant.
A LINE may also be invisible, but note that the points on a line can
be optionally marked by a symbol.  For a scatter diagram turn on the
points and make the line invisible.  Of course you can have both the
line and the points show up.  The use of "items ix iy" and "item n is"
are described under "Data for plotting" above.

BARS may be shaded with a hatch pattern that is left diagonal, right
diagonal, vertical, horizontal, or square.  You set the spacing between
lines (in units of line widths) as gap = n.  A gap of 1 for any pattern
gives a solid bar.  A gap of 2 for a diagonal pattern gives a uniform
gray shade.  The shading patterns replace what was in the bar, not just
overlay it.  Thus a grid line will not show inside a bar provided the
grid line was drawn before the bar was.

Groups of BARS over the same data point may be placed side by side by the
keyword phrase "abut m of n".  With 3 sets of bars you could: abut 1 of 3,
abut 2 of 3, and abut 3 of 3.  This abutting feature can also be used to
offset single sets of bars from their data points.

An ISO is a line of constant value (horizontal or vertical).  ISO's are
handy for reference lines like time-now lines or data tolerance limits.
They can also be used to make plot grids (which may be irregularly spaced).
An ISO is speciifed at a data-value so an AXIS must have already been
specified to make the data value meaningful.

A LABEL is like a TITLE, except that it is located at a pair of coordinates
in data-values instead of inches.  This is very handy for annotating plot
points of interest or annotating reference lines or creating a sort of
legend by labelling lines or bars.

You specify color in micro PLOX in the simplest way, by a single
statement of the form:  HUE color-name.  All plot objects following
the HUE statement will be drawn in that color until another HUE
statment is encountered.  HUE statements are ignored in monochrome
device drivers.  The default color is chalk, which is a less bright
white.   The HUE names are:

                  blue  pea  aqua coral plum  umber chalk
             gray azure lime cyan peach lilac lemon white

These were chosen to be short and colorful (groan), or in many cases
flavorful, while fairly well describing what they look like (on my
monitor at least).

                        PLOX in Data

You have seen above that you can put the numeric data in your PLOX file
(via file *).  It seems only fair that the converse be true and it is;
you can put (some) PLOX statements in your numeric data file.  Why would
you  want to do this you ask?  Well, the utility of it is that you can
then have a single PLOX picture description file that draws any number of
similar charts each with its own data.  To make this useful you must be
able to specify the data file at the time you draw your chart, and you
can do this, too.  Just specify the data file name as @ on your LINE or
BARS statement.  Then you can put the data file name on the PLOX command
line as the second parameter as in: PLOX  FUNDINFO.PIC  FUND02.DAT, or
if you don't put it there PLOX will stop and ask you for the name when
it is needed.

Okay that's fine for the different numeric data, but why would you need
PLOX statements in the data.  The main reason is to allow you to change
the text of TITLEs and LABELs.  You can also change the range of an AXIS
and even have a feature on one chart that doesn't appear on another.

The statements you can put in a data file are TITLE, LABEL, AXIS, ISO,
and HUE.  You identify such a statement as PLOX by starting it with
an at-symbol, @, such as @TITLE or @AXIS.  A nice feature of TITLE in
this regard is that the text part can be on a separate statement.  Thus
you can put the location, size, font, and  color of a title in the
picture file and just set the text in the data with a statement like:

            @TITLE text <the text here>

This brings to mind a key point.  What happens if you have more than
one TITLE?  Things get a little tricky here so pay close attention.
Since PLOX rereads the data file for each LINE or BAR it would tend to
draw every PLOX feature in your data file for each plot.  What you need
is a way to tell it during which LINE or BAR drawing action to use a
given PLOX-in-data statement.  We made a compromise here.  In the typical
data file with many columns there is one common set of x or horizontal
data but there is a separate column of y data for each plot.  We have
chosen to let the y data column number be the key to activating a PLOX-
in-data statement.  Thus the full statement must consist of @ followed
immediately by a single digit followed immediately by the PLOX keyword
followed by the options you choose. For example:

        @2AXIS left range to 500

will draw a left axis on whatever AREA is current when the LINE or set of
BARS that uses item n 2 is being drawn, i.e., the y item number is 2.
This is a little subtle, but is a very powerful feature if you have a
lot of charts that look alike.  It makes it especially easy to change
the look of the whole set of charts.

With regard to the question of TITLE text you must realize that PLOX
will already have moved to an AREA to start drawing a LINE or BAR.  Thus
the TITLE location must be set relative to the location (lower left corner)
of the AREA.  Okay, all this is difficult, but you don't have to use it,
and the program is free.  It might help to both study and run the examples
provided by FUNDINFO.PIC with FUND01.DAT and FUND02.DAT.

A further current limitation (due to the developer's laziness) is that the
number following the @ before the PLOX keyword must be a single digit only
so you can't use 10 and up.  Sorry about that one, too.