gnuplot load does not work in a bash script

Question

I have a bash script to automate plotting using gnuplot, however the load command within gnuplot does not work in the bash script. The command simply gets stuck.

Here is my bash script:

#!/bin/bash

for k in _1 +1 _2 +2 _3 +3 _4 +4 _5 +5 _6 +6
do
    cd $k/surface

    for i in s ss
    do
        cd $i
        for j in `ls -d */`
        do
            if [ "$j" != "unrelax/" ]; then
                cd $j/spin
                echo $k$i$j

                gnuplot 
                load 't-dos.plt'
                exit            

                cd ../../
            fi
        done     
        cd ..
    done     
    cd ../../
done

t-dos.plt contains:

cat > t-dos.plt << eof
fermi=$(head -6 DOSCAR | tail -1 | awk '{print $4}')
plot 't-dos' u (\$1-fermi):2 w l
replot 't-dos' u (\$1-fermi):3 w l
set term post enhanced color
set output 't-dos.ps'
rep
eof

My output is like:

entering the gnuplot and stay there forever

Your question is not well formatted. Please indent your code to fix this. — Michael Hoff
– Michael Hoff, Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 22:01
If I just type gnuplot and load the .plt file in a specific directory, it works perfectly fine. But it does not work in bash script. OMG... — Lei Zhang
– Lei Zhang, Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 22:14

bodgit · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-14 22:50:57Z

2

When your bash script runs gnuplot, it's now sat waiting for gnuplot to exit before continuing any further, at which point it will then try and run a command called load (and probably fail). gnuplot is itself sat waiting for input giving the illusion that your script is paused or hanging.

What you're expecting to happen is for any text after the gnuplot line to be magically entered into the gnuplot interface, bash scripts don't work that way.

answered Jul 14, 2016 at 22:50

bodgit

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Comments

Vinicius Placco · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-16 01:38:57Z

0

There is two things you could do. The first was suggested in the comments:

gnuplot t-dos.plt

The other would be using a "here document":

gnuplot << GNUPLOT

load t-dos.plt

GNUPLOT

answered Jul 16, 2016 at 1:38

Vinicius Placco

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