I have a set of data from ping composed of a time stamp and the time, in ms, of the ping response. The time stamp ranges from 08:29:42 and ends at 09:33:54. There is a comma between the time stamp and the ping response. Here is a sample of the actual file:
08:29:42, 4.24
08:29:43, 117
08:29:44, 141
08:29:45, 266
08:29:46, 292
08:29:47, 109
When importing the text file into Excel and highlighting columns A and B and inserting a line chart, I get the following:
It is desirable to stay away from Excel and I was hoping to employ gnuplot for this. Specifically because the ping data was collected by a bash script and I could add in the gnuplot functionality to the same script in order to automate things.
Taking the same file and loading it into gnuplot with the following commands:
set term png
set out "gnuplot graph.png"
plot 'ping.txt' with lines
I get the following output:
I do not see near the detail in the gnuplot that I see in the excel plot. Additionally the time on the X-Axis only ranges from 08:00-09:00. I would like the graph to take in the entire range from the text file and plot appropriately.
What am I doing wrong in gnuplot for the outputs to be so different?
gnuplot doesn't know that the x data you are using is a time unless you tell it that. Try the following script instead.
set xdata time
set timefmt "%H:%M:%S"
plot "ping.txt" using 1:2
Edit:
To use lines instead of points add with lines to the end of your plot command:
set xdata time
set timefmt "%H:%M:%S"
plot "ping.txt" using 1:2 with lines
Also I noticed that the data you put in your question has empty lines separating the data points. This will cause your lines to not show up. I highly recommend reformatting your CSV to remove the blank lines.