Question about data plots



|I've read in the man, "describe(plot)",
|something about "xgraph_curves", but...
                                                                               
|(C3) xgraph_curves([sample]);
                                                                               
|sh: line 1: xgraph: command not found
|(D3)                                  0
                                                                               
The documentation about xgraph should probably be updated
or expanded.
                                                                               
xgraph is a separate application that can be downloaded from
  http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/xgraph/
but doesn't come with the Maxima installation.
                                                                               
xgraph is an older plotting program and I'm not sure it's still
being maintained, but it still could be useful. I just
downloaded it and tried it out and it is very easy to install.
                                                                               
# at the bash prompt as a normal user
 zcat xgraph-12.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -
 cd xgraph-12.1
 ./configure
 make
                                                                               
# switch to root account for install
 su
 make install
 exit

I executed your commands from within Maxima and
got the data plot.
                                                                               
 load(bessel)$ sample:makelist([i,gauss(0,1)],i,1,50)$
 xgraph_curves([sample]);
                                                                               
|Is it possible to plot data with Maxima+Gnuplot?
                                                                               
As an alternative to openplot, you can invoke
Gnuplot easily to graph 'functions' with:
                                                                               
 set_plot_option([plot_format,gnuplot]);
 plot2d(x^2,[x,-2,2]);
                                                                               
The only way I know to use Maxima+Gnuplot
to plot data is to save the data as text
file and use Gnuplot (or Octave, R, or even
a spreadsheet) to do the plot.

L. Prevett
Mathematics Instructor
Cochise College, Sierra Vista, AZ, US
prevettl@cochise.edu