Latex pgfplots got an error of Dimension too large

Question

I want to plot a graph with the format looking like this (with a line) but Latex only gives me this with an error of Dimension too large.
This is my latex file

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.5}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    ytick={2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10},
    xtick={15000,25000,35000},
    xmax=35000,
    xmin=15000,
    ymax=10,
    ymin=2,
    ylabel=Number of Groupings,
    xlabel= Total tests used,
    height=6cm,
    width=10cm,
    /pgf/number format/fixed,
    /pgf/number format/precision=3,
    domain=0:10
    ]
\addplot[mark=*,blue]
table {compare.dat};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{center}

\end{document}

This is my dat file

x y 
2 30000
3 22494
4 19906
5 18974
6 19779
7 18971
8 19390
9 19953
10 20612

How can I fix it?

Answer 1

You must choose (or let pgfplots choose for you) axis ranges which at least contain some of your data points.

With

xmax=35000,
xmin=15000,
ymax=10,
ymin=2,

you exclude each and every single data point, so pgfplots is having trouble to scale the non-existent graph you want it to draw.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.5}

\begin{filecontents*}[overwrite]{compare.dat}
x y 
2 30000
3 22494
4 19906
5 18974
6 19779
7 18971
8 19390
9 19953
10 20612
\end{filecontents*}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
%    ytick={2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10},
%    xtick={15000,25000,35000},
%    xmax=35000,
%    xmin=15000,
%    ymax=10,
%    ymin=2,
    ylabel=Number of Groupings,
    xlabel= Total tests used,
    height=6cm,
    width=10cm,
    /pgf/number format/fixed,
    /pgf/number format/precision=3,
    domain=0:10
    ]
\addplot[mark=*,blue]
table {compare.dat};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{center}

\end{document}