NAME¶
xplot.org —
fast tool to graph and
visualize lots of data
SYNOPSIS¶
| xplot.org |
[-v]
[-x]
[-y]
[-tile]
[-mono]
[-1]
[-d display |
-display display]
[-d2 display]
file
[files...] |
DESCRIPTION¶
xplot.org 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.org 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).
When running
xplot.org, 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.org sources.
demo.0 lists all the
commands.
xplot.org demo.0
demonstrates
xplot.org'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) tcpdump(8)
HISTORY¶
The
xplot.org 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.
