It is very convenient to define a path where gnuplot knows where the configuration files are. I also create directories in that location with styles, definitions, macros, etc, so that I do not have to include them in every single gnuplot script that I create. I have stolen the idea from this page.
I have defined a folder named
~/fitx_confg/gnuplot
where I have both the file gnuplotrc and another folder, called snippets.
I do not like to have configuration files in my home directory, I prefer to collect them all in a different folder. The contents of gnuplotrc are
# gnuplotrc configuration file
# Pau Amaro Seoane, Berlin, 24/Jul/2020
# Beause gnuplot does not allow to pass an argument
# to load this file, link its location to $HOME/.gnuplot
# In my case gnuplotrc is in $HOME/fitx_confg/gnuplot/ :
# ln -fs $HOME/fitx_confg/gnuplot/gnuplotrc $HOME/.gnuplot
# ******************** loadpath ******************* #
set loadpath "/home/pau/fitx_confg/gnuplot/snippets/:/home/pau/fitx_confg/gnuplot/palettes/" # Do not use $HOME here
If you wish, obviously, you can simply add that line to $HOME/.gnuplotrc and avoid the symbolic linking.
The contents of snippets is the following:
$ ls snippets arrows.cfg convfactors.cfg header.cfg lines.cfg xborder.cfg yborder.cfg constants.cfg grid.cfg
where, again, I have taken over a lot of things from gnuplotting.
The most important file is header.cfg, which contains this
set terminal epslatex size 8.89cm,6.65cm color colortext 10 header "\\newcommand{\\ft}[0]{\\footnotesize}"
set border linewidth 4
set output "out.tex"
because I always use latex with gnuplot thanks to two scripts I wrote.
Another example is constants.cfg
# Physical and astronomical constants in cgs units # Source: Binney & Tremaine 87, Appendix 1.A Grav_G=6.672e-8 Light_c=2.99792458e10 Planck_h=6.62618e-27 Boltzmann_k=1.38066e-16 Electron_q=4.80324e-10 Electron_q_inCoulomb=1.602189e-19 Proton_m=1.672649e-24 Electron_m=9.10953e-28 StefanBoltz_Sigma=5.6703e-5 Thomson_CrossSec=6.65245e-25 AstroUnit=1.49597892e13 Parsec=3.08567802e18 SideralYear=3.1558149984e7 Sun_M=1.989e33 Sun_GM=1.32712497e26 Sun_R=6.9599e10 Sun_L=3.826e33 Sun_Vesc=6.175e7 Sun_MagV=4.83 Sun_MagB=5.48 Earth_M=5.976e27 Sun_Teff=5778 # Mathematical constants pi=3.14159
You can get more examples from the original page here: