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Command-line Unix ASCII-based charting / plotting tool

People also ask

Which command is used to plot a graph?

The plot() function in R is used to create the line graph.

What is Graph command?

GRAPH creates bar charts, pie charts, line charts, error bar charts, high-low-close charts, scatterplots, and Pareto charts. Options. Titles and Footnotes. You can specify a title, subtitle, and footnote for the chart using the TITLE , SUBTITLE , and FOOTNOTE subcommands.


Try gnuplot. It has very powerful graphing possibilities.

It can output to your terminal in the following way:

gnuplot> set terminal dumb
Terminal type set to 'dumb'
Options are 'feed 79 24'
gnuplot> plot sin(x)

   1 ++----------------**---------------+----**-----------+--------**-----++
     +                *+ *              +   *  *          +  sin(x) ****** +
 0.8 ++              *    *                *    *                *    *   ++
     |               *    *                *    *                *    *    |
 0.6 ++              *     *              *      *              *      *  ++
     *              *       *             *       *             *      *   |
 0.4 +*             *       *             *       *             *      *  ++
     |*            *        *            *        *            *        *  |
 0.2 +*            *        *            *        *            *        * ++
     | *          *          *          *          *          *          * |
   0 ++*          *          *          *          *          *          *++
     |  *         *           *         *           *         *           *|
-0.2 ++ *         *           *         *           *         *           *+
     |   *       *            *        *            *        *            *|
-0.4 ++  *       *            *        *            *        *            *+
     |   *      *              *      *              *      *              *
-0.6 ++  *      *              *      *              *      *             ++
     |    *     *               *     *               *    *               |
-0.8 ++    *   *                 *   *                *    *              ++
     +     *  *        +         *  *   +              *  *                +
  -1 ++-----**---------+----------**----+---------------**+---------------++
    -10               -5                0                 5                10

While gnuplot is powerful, it's also really irritating when you just want to pipe in a bunch of points and get a graph.

Thankfully, someone created eplot (easy plot), which handles all the nonsense for you.

It doesn't seem to have an option to force terminal graphs; I patched it like so:

--- eplot.orig  2012-10-12 17:07:35.000000000 -0700
+++ eplot       2012-10-12 17:09:06.000000000 -0700
@@ -377,6 +377,7 @@
                # ---- print the options
                com="echo '\n"+getStyleString+@oc["MiscOptions"]
                com=com+"set multiplot;\n" if doMultiPlot
+               com=com+"set terminal dumb;\n"
                com=com+"plot "+@oc["Range"]+comString+"\n'| gnuplot -persist"
                printAndRun(com)
                # ---- convert to PDF

An example of use:

[$]> git shortlog -s -n | awk '{print $1}' | eplot 2> /dev/null


  3500 ++-------+-------+--------+--------+-------+--------+-------+-------++
       +        +       +        "/tmp/eplot20121012-19078-fw3txm-0" ****** +       *                                                                    |  3000 +*                                                                  ++       |*                                                                   |       | *                                                                  |  2500 ++*                                                                 ++       | *                                                                  |
       |  *                                                                 |
  2000 ++ *                                                                ++
       |  **                                                                |
  1500 ++   ****                                                           ++
       |        *                                                           |
       |         **                                                         |
  1000 ++          *                                                       ++
       |            *                                                       |
       |            *                                                       |
   500 ++            ***                                                   ++
       |                **************                                      |
       +        +       +        +    **********  +        +       +        +
     0 ++-------+-------+--------+--------+-----***************************++
       0        5       10       15       20      25       30      35       40

Another option I've just run across is bashplotlib. Here's an example run on (roughly) the same data as my eplot example:

[$]> git shortlog -s -n | awk '{print $1}' | hist

 33|   o
 32|   o
 30|   o
 28|   o
 27|   o
 25|   o
 23|   o
 22|   o
 20|   o
 18|   o
 16|   o
 15|   o
 13|   o
 11|   o
 10|   o
  8|   o
  6|   o
  5|   o
  3|   o o     o
  1|   o o     o o       o
  0|   o o o o o o       o
    ----------------------

-----------------------
|       Summary       |
-----------------------
|   observations: 50  |
| min value: 1.000000 |
|  mean : 519.140000  |
|max value: 3207.000000|
-----------------------

Adjusting the bins helps the resolution a bit:

[$]> git shortlog -s -n | awk '{print $1}' | hist --nosummary --bins=40

 18|   o
   |   o
 17|   o
 16|   o
 15|   o
 14|   o
 13|   o
 12|   o
 11|   o
 10|   o
  9|   o
  8|   o
  7|   o
  6|   o
  5|   o   o
  4|   o   o o
  3|   o o o o   o
  2|   o o o o   o
  1|   o o o o   o                     o       o
  0|   o o o o o o           o     o   o o   o o                                 o
   |   o o o o o o           o     o   o o   o o                                 o
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also: asciichart (implemented in Node.js, Python, Java, Go and Haskell)

enter image description here


feedgnuplot is another front end to gnuplot, which handles piping in data.

    $ seq 5 | awk '{print 2*$1, $1*$1}' |
      feedgnuplot --lines --points --legend 0 "data 0" --title "Test plot" --y2 1 \
                  --terminal 'dumb 80,40' --exit

                                     Test plot

     10 ++------+--------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+------*A 25
        +       +        +       +       +       +        +       +    **#+
        |       :        :       :       :       :        : data 0+**A*** |
        |       :        :       :       :       :        :       :** #   |
      9 ++.......................................................**.##....|
        |       :        :       :       :       :        :    ** :#      |
        |       :        :       :       :       :        :  **   #       |
        |       :        :       :       :       :        :**   ##:      ++ 20
      8 ++................................................A....#..........|
        |       :        :       :       :       :      **:   #   :       |
        |       :        :       :       :       :    **  : ##    :       |
        |       :        :       :       :       :  **    :#      :       |
        |       :        :       :       :       :**      B       :       |
      7 ++......................................**......##................|
        |       :        :       :       :    ** :    ##  :       :      ++ 15
        |       :        :       :       :  **   :   #    :       :       |
        |       :        :       :       :**     : ##     :       :       |
      6 ++..............................*A.......##.......................|
        |       :        :       :    ** :     ##:        :       :       |
        |       :        :       :  **   :    #  :        :       :       |
        |       :        :       :**     :  ##   :        :       :      ++ 10
      5 ++......................**........##..............................|
        |       :        :    ** :      #B       :        :       :       |
        |       :        :  **   :    ## :       :        :       :       |
        |       :        :**     :  ##   :       :        :       :       |
      4 ++...............A.......###......................................|
        |       :      **:     ##:       :       :        :       :       |
        |       :    **  :   ##  :       :       :        :       :      ++ 5
        |       :  **    : ##    :       :       :        :       :       |
        |       :**    ##B#      :       :       :        :       :       |
      3 ++.....**..####...................................................|
        |    **####      :       :       :       :        :       :       |
        |  **## :        :       :       :       :        :       :       |
        B**     +        +       +       +       +        +       +       +
      2 A+------+--------+-------+-------+-------+--------+-------+------++ 0
        1      1.5       2      2.5      3      3.5       4      4.5      5

You can install it on Debian and Ubuntu by running sudo apt install feedgnuplot .


Plots in a single line are really simple, and can help one see patterns of highs and lows.
See also pysparklines.
(Does anyone know of unicode slanting lines, which could be fit together to make line, not bar, plots ?)

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from __future__ import division
import numpy as np

__version__ = "2015-01-02 jan  denis"


#...............................................................................
def onelineplot( x, chars=u"▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█", sep=" " ):
    """ numbers -> v simple one-line plots like

f ▆ ▁ ▁ ▁ █ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁  osc 47  ▄ ▁ █ ▇ ▄ ▆ ▅ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▄ ▃ ▃ ▁ ▃ ▂  rosenbrock
f █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ █ ▅ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁  osc 58  ▂ ▁ ▃ ▂ ▄ ▃ ▅ ▄ ▆ ▅ ▇ ▆ █ ▇ ▇ ▃ ▃ ▇  rastrigin
f █ █ █ █ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁  osc 90  █ ▇ ▇ ▁ █ ▇ █ ▇ █ ▇ █ ▇ █ ▇ █ ▇ █ ▇  ackley

Usage:
    astring = onelineplot( numbers [optional chars= sep= ])
In:
    x: a list / tuple / numpy 1d array of numbers
    chars: plot characters, default the 8 Unicode bars above
    sep: "" or " " between plot chars

How it works:
    linscale x  ->  ints 0 1 2 3 ...  ->  chars ▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ...

See also: https://github.com/RedKrieg/pysparklines
    """

    xlin = _linscale( x, to=[-.49, len(chars) - 1 + .49 ])
        # or quartiles 0 - 25 - 50 - 75 - 100
    xints = xlin.round().astype(int)
    assert xints.ndim == 1, xints.shape  # todo: 2d
    return sep.join([ chars[j] for j in xints ])


def _linscale( x, from_=None, to=[0,1] ):
    """ scale x from_ -> to, default min, max -> 0, 1 """
    x = np.asanyarray(x)
    m, M = from_ if from_ is not None \
        else [np.nanmin(x), np.nanmax(x)]
    if m == M:
        return np.ones_like(x) * np.mean( to )
    return (x - m) * (to[1] - to[0]) \
        / (M - m)  + to[0]


#...............................................................................
if __name__ == "__main__":  # standalone test --
    import sys

    if len(sys.argv) > 1:  # numbers on the command line, may be $(cat myfile)
        x = map( float, sys.argv[1:] )
    else:
        np.random.seed( 0 )
        x = np.random.exponential( size=20 )

    print onelineplot( x )

Check the package plotext which allows to plot data directly on terminal using python3. It is very intuitive as its use is very similar to the matplotlib package.

Here is a basic example:

enter image description here

You can install it with the following command:

sudo -H pip install plotext

As for matplotlib, the main functions are scatter (for single points), plot (for points joined by lines) and show (to actually print the plot on terminal). It is easy to specify the plot dimensions, the point and line styles and whatever to show the axes, number ticks and final equations, which are used to convert the plotted coordinates to the original real values.

Here is the code to produce the plot shown above:

import plotext.plot as plx
import numpy as np

l=3000
x=np.arange(0, l)
y=np.sin(4*np.pi/l*np.array(x))*np.exp(-0.5*np.pi/l*x)

plx.scatter(x, y, rows = 17, cols = 70)
plx.show(clear = 0)

The option clear=True inside show is used to clear the terminal before plotting: this is useful, for example, when plotting a continuous flow of data. An example of plotting a continuous data flow is shown here: enter image description here

The package description provides more information how to customize the plot. The package has been tested on Ubuntu 16 where it works perfectly. Possible future developments (upon request) could involve extension to python2 and to other graphical interfaces (e.g. jupiter). Please let me know if you have any issues using it. Thanks.

I hope this answers your problem.