Plotting trajectory with gnuplot

Question

I have a datafile with position of a moving point in the following format.

x1  y1
x2  y2 
x3  y3
.
.
.

I wish to make an animated trajectory with this data in gnuplot. How can I do that?

I tried

do for [i=1:20] {
plot "temp.dat" every ::i using 1 : 2 w p
}

But it plots all the points in a single image, not an animation. What is the way of doing this?

Answer 1

While I was coding and got interrupted... @Ethan's answer already contains all the necessary ingredients, I post my answer nevertheless, with a little visual demo... Check help gif, help stats and help every, these are the main "components". In the following example you hopefully find what you are looking for.

Code:

### trajectory animated
reset session

# create some test data
v = 40
a = 45
g = 9.81
set print $Data
    do for [i=0:86] {
        t = i/10.
        sx(t) = v*cos(a)*t
        sy(t) = v*sin(a)*t - 0.5*g*t**2 
        print sprintf("%.3f %.3f",sx(t),sy(t))
    }
set print

set xrange[0:200]
set yrange[0:80]

set term gif size 400,300 animate delay 5 optimize
set output "Trajectory.gif"

stats $Data nooutput
N = STATS_records
do for [i=0:N-1] {
    plot $Data u 1:2 every ::::i w l notitle, \
         '' u 1:2 every ::i::i w p pt 7 lc rgb "red" notitle
}
set output
### end of code

Result: