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Manual page for Attribute_types_-_reference(PL)
DESCRIPTION
Many of the various attributes are of
standard types. These types are described here, for reference.
POSITION UNITS
Absolute space is measured in inches (or centimeters if
set in the config file). Origin is always the lower-left
corner of the page/drawing area.
Scaled space is measured in whatever units have been
defined with a proc areadef.
For more information, see
scaleunits
CHARACTERS AND TEXT
Any available PostScript font may used when rendering in PostScript;
otherwise a single standard font is used. See
textdetails
for more information about rendering text.
Text specifications may include embedded
special characters, which will be rendered in PostScript mode only.
The notation for these is borrowed from unix troff (e.g. \(bu for
bullet). See
specialchars
ATTRIBUTE TYPES
The attribute types, listed from simplest to most complex, are:
n
A single number.
May be floating point or integer.
Example: Offset: 3.2
dfield
A reference to a field in the plot data.
Plot data must have already been read using proc getdata.
A dfield may be an integer (1 or greater), e.g.
1 would refer to the first data field.
If field names have been defined in proc getdata,
dfield may also be one of the defined names.
plotvalue
A plottable value given the scaling and ranges that have been
set up with the most recent proc areadef.
See the above description of
position units
locvalue
A number or value that
describes a location or length.
May be either absolute units or scaled units.
If a suffix of (s) is attached to the end
of the number, the number is taken as being in scaled
space, and must be a plottable value (a number for numeric scaling,
a date where date scaling is being used, etc.)
If the number does not have a (s) suffix, it is interpreted as
being in absolute space.
Special operators: min may be used to indicate the
minima of a defined plot area, and max to indicate the maxima.
Offsets: A +/- offset may be given after the value
(no embedded spaces allowed). The offset is always an
absolute value.
Note that it is impossible to specify a negative offset when using date scaling
with a date notation that uses embedded dashes such as mm-dd-yyyy.
See the examples below.
See the above description of
position units
Example: 3.5 = 3.5 absolute units (inches or centimeters).
Example: 142(s) = 142 in scaled units (whatever was defined in the
most recent areadef).
Example: min = the plot area minima
Example: min-0.1 = 0.1 inch below plot area minima
Example: 23jan98(s)+0.5 = 0.5 inch above the point where 23jan98 (in scaled units) would lie
lenvalue
Uses same notation as locvalue except that it
describes a distance rather than a location.
Distances may be given in absolute units or scaled "basic" units
(e.g. for date and datetime this should be a value in days;
for time scaling this should be a value in minutes).
See the above description of
locvalue
x y
A coordinate pair. Both x and y are locvalues.
See the above description of
locvalue
Example: Location: 5.3 1
printf-spec
A format specifier as used in the "C" programming language,
used to specify decimal number format. For example, a printf-spec of
%3.0f rounds to produce numbers like this: 7, 55, 240, 8492.
A printf-spec of %5.2 rounds to produce numbers like this: 7.00 55.05
239.62 8491.50.
Another example: $%.2f would yield $82.54
Another example: $%6.2f would yield $ 82.54
Another example: %3.0f%% would yield 44%
%g may be used to give the shortest possible representation.
string
A character string value containing no embedded white space. All
white space before and after the string is discarded.
text
A character string value that may contain embedded white space.
The specification may not occupy more than one line, however embedded
newlines (specified as \n) may be used to indicate that output should
have multiple lines.
Example:
Yaxis.label: Number of Attempts\nBefore Success
multilinetext
Text that may be specified using one or more lines.
The last line of the text is indicated by a blank (zero-length) line.
(A common error is to forget to leave a blank line and hence
get incorrect results.)
The maximum number of lines / characters in a multilinetext item
varies, but is generally high enough to be rarely encountered.
Blank lines that are to be part of the text may be escaped
using a backslash (\), or by putting some blanks into the line.
Title: Comparison of Survey Techniques
By Region
\
Fall, 1997
It is also ok to leave the first line blank as in the following
example:
Title:
Comparison of Survey Techniques
By Region
\
Fall, 1997
RELATED TO GRAPHICS RENDERING
pointsize
An integer point size (usable range is 5 - 30 or so).
font
A postscript font name.
color see
color
textdetails see
textdetails
linedetails see
linedetails
symboldetails see
symboldetails
conditional expression see
condex
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 data display engine
Copyright Steve Grubb
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