XPLOT(1)

NAME
xplot - fast tool to graph and visualize lots of data

SYNOPSIS
xplot [-v] [-x] [-y] [-tile] [-mono] [-1] [-d display | -display display] [-d2 display] file [files...]

DESCRIPTION
xplot is a fast visualization tool for examining multiple data sets in parallel plots. It supports easy zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities, and synchronized views into multiple data sets (with the -x, -y, and -tile options).

OPTIONS
-1 allows one to look at multiple data sets, one at a time. This changes the behavior of click-right and shift-click-right from exiting and printing to cycling forward and backward through the various plots. -d display, -display display, -d2 display, all select which display(s) on which to draw the graphs. -mono causes the graph(s) to be drawn in black and white, with no use of color. -tile allows one to look at multiple data sets in parallel. The plots will each consume 1/nth of the vertical space that would have been used with one plot. This works well if the window manager refrains from wasting pixels with decorative tabs and respects the hints that xplot provides. -v prints the version number. -x causes several graphs to be synchronized on the X-axis (zooming in one window zooms all the others, with the same portion of the X-axis on display). The Y-axis of the other graphs will be autoscaled to fit the data. -y causes several graphs to be synchronized on the Y-axis (zooming in one window zooms all the others, with the same portion of the Y-axis on display).

USE OF MOUSE BUTTONS
When running xplot, the mouse may be used to zoom in and out on data. Dragging with the left mouse button depressed while inside the axes of the graph draws a rubber-band box around the area to be replotted in the existing window. Dragging with the left mouse button depressed while outside the axes (below the X-axis or to the left of the Y-axis) selects the range of the axis to plot. In effect, this is like the previous mechanism, but only zooming on one axis. Dragging with the middle mouse button inside the axes pans the graph; the start-drag position ends up being at the end-drag position. Dragging on the axes pans only in one dimension. Clicking the left mouse button zooms out to the previous view. One can zoom in multiple times, then back up through each view. Panning locations are not saved. Clicking the right mouse button exits the program. Shift-clicking on the mouse buttons produces Postscript files with the same axis extents as the current view. Shift-left produces a full-page view. Shift-middle produces a squarish plot, and shift-right a plot such that three of them fit on a page of LaTeX.

PLOT LANGUAGE
There are several example files demo.0, demo.1, demo.2, etc., stored with the xplot sources. demo.0 lists all the commands.
    xplot demo.0
demonstrates xplot's capabilities.

USE WITH TCPDUMP
The command
    tcpdump -tt -S ... > tcpdump.out
saves a tcpdump formatted output trace to tcpdump.out. The -tt and -S flags tell tcpdump to print an unformatted timestamp and to use absolute TCP sequence numbers. This trace can then be examined by being processed with tcpdump2xplot.
    tcpdump -plot tcpdump.out

SEE ALSO
tcpdump2xplot(1),

HISTORY
The xplot command was written by Tim Shepard as a tool to use in his analysis of TCP performance while at MIT. Some features were added by Andrew Heybey and Greg Troxel.

BUGS
Some people may not like that the right mouse button exits without confirmation, although others consider it a feature that enables rapidly viewing hundreds of similar plots. Should use standard X geometry specifications.