Gnuplot Version 5.4.2 Release Notes

This release contains bug fixes and a few new features back-ported from the development version. Gnuplot development is tracked in a git repository on SourceForge. You can generate a complete history of changes using "git log" after downloading:

git clone -b branch-5-4-stable git://git.code.sf.net/p/gnuplot/gnuplot-main

Known issue: When run on Windows 10, gnuplot 5.4 does not work reliably with piped input
Work-around: Stick with version 5.2.8 on Windows 10.

Release Notes date: 28-May-2021

Changes in 5.4.2

Features introduced in 5.4.1

Features introduced in version 5.4

Notes for packagers and testers

Obsolete or deprecated components

The "gnuplot mode" elisp and TeX files for use with emacs are now maintained as a separate project: https://github.com/bruceravel/gnuplot-mode so there is no longer a configuration option --with-lisp-files.

LaTeX-related terminal drivers latex, emtex, eepic, and tpic are no longer built by default. Their closest equivalent is the new pict2e terminal, but LaTeX users who want support for the full range of gnuplot plot styles are recommended to use the cairolatex or tikz terminals.

The Japanese man page is provided both in eucJP and UTF-8 encodings. Installation into appropriate directories is left to packagers.

Configuration options for interactive use

The 5.4 source code supports three primary cross-platform interactive modes in addition to several platform-specific modes.

  1. Qt

    The qt terminal supports interactive display with menu-driven output to png, svg or pdf. If either Qt4 or Qt5 is detected by the configure script, this will be the default terminal. It is now the fastest and most full-featured interactive terminal option.

    To disable this terminal:

    ./configure --without-qt

    To force use of Qt4 even if Qt5 is present:

    ./configure --with-qt=qt4

  2. Cairo/pango/wxWidgets

    This set of terminals includes pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo, and cairolatex for output to a file. The wxt terminal provides interactive display All of these will be built by default if the configuration script finds the required libcairo, libpango, libcairo, libwxgtk, and related support libraries

    To disable these terminals:

    ./configure --without-cairo ./configure --with-cairo --disable-wxwidgets

  3. X11 (the "classic" interactive interface) This used to be the preferred interactive interface, but the newer wxt and qt terminals offer nicer output and a wider range of features.

Options for output to files

Of course the terminals (output modes) present in previous gnuplot versions are also still available. These include, among many more obscure options:

Output of inline graphics to xterm or linux console terminal emulator

The sixel or sixelgd terminals display graphics in-line with the commands typed on a suitable terminal emulator. For example "xterm -ti 340" emulates a vt340 with sixel color graphics. The yaft terminal emulator can be run at linux console level with no x11 or other windowing system active.

Options for generating interactive plots for web display

Other Notes

Installation

You can download a source tarball for the current gnuplot version from the gnuplot development site on SourceForge.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuplot

Installation instructions are available in the source itself; the short version for linux/unix-like systems is to unpack the tarball and then

build it:
      cd gnuplot-5.4.2 ; ./configure ; make
test it:
      make check
install it:
      make install

Pay careful attention to the output of the ./configure script. It may indicate that some output drivers have been omitted because the necessary support libraries were not found. In general you need to have previously installed the "-devel-" versions of these libraries.

Support

Please report all bugs and installation problems to the bug tracker on SourceForge:

https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/bugs/

Development

Gnuplot development is ongoing. The development branch contains preliminary implementations of new features. The current development version is 5.5 (odd minor number) and will eventually be released as version 5.6 or 6.0 (even minor number). Bugfixes to version 5.4 will appear in patchlevel releases 5.4.1, 5.4.2, etc., approximately twice a year or as needed to correct a serious problem.