Plotting Other Org Tables
I’m currently in the process of learning how to create graphical plots from org tables using gnuplot. I’ve noticed that it’s generally more straightforward to extract x-axis data from an org table column with incrementing numbers, as opposed to relying on gnuplot to potentially sort out data from an existing column (which may not be plot-friendly)
Generally my existing org tables do not have such an incrementing integer column, so how do I quickly create and populate such a column?, well actually it is super easy, barely an inconvenience!
For example take the following table that represents a little flutter on the horses, how would I go about plotting the Total column and therefore clearly visualise the downward sloping line 😀
| Date | Horse | Stk | Ret | Prof | Total |
|--------+----------------+-----+-------+-------+--------|
| | | | | 0 | 306.9 |
| 27 May | aggagio | 15 | 7.68 | -7.32 | 299.58 |
| | red derek | 15 | 0 | -15 | 284.58 |
| 03 Jun | dear my friend | 10 | 0 | -10 | 274.58 |
| | the foxes | 10 | 32 | 22 | 296.58 |
| | sprewell | 10 | 16 | 6 | 302.58 |
| | dancing poet | 15 | 16.73 | 1.73 | 304.31 |
Firstly simply M-S-<right> to insert a table column:
| | Date | Horse | Stk | Ret | Prof | Total |
|---+--------+----------------+-----+-------+-------+--------|
| | | | | | 0 | 306.9 |
| | 27 May | aggagio | 15 | 7.68 | -7.32 | 299.58 |
| | | red derek | 15 | 0 | -15 | 284.58 |
| | 03 Jun | dear my friend | 10 | 0 | -10 | 274.58 |
| | | the foxes | 10 | 32 | 22 | 296.58 |
| | | sprewell | 10 | 16 | 6 | 302.58 |
| | | dancing poet | 15 | 16.73 | 1.73 | 304.31 |
Now move the cursor to the starting point and put in an initial integer:
| | Date | Horse | Stk | Ret | Prof | Total |
|---+--------+----------------+-----+-------+-------+--------|
| 1 | | | | | 0 | 306.9 |
| | 27 May | aggagio | 15 | 7.68 | -7.32 | 299.58 |
| | | red derek | 15 | 0 | -15 | 284.58 |
| | 03 Jun | dear my friend | 10 | 0 | -10 | 274.58 |
| | | the foxes | 10 | 32 | 22 | 296.58 |
| | | sprewell | 10 | 16 | 6 | 302.58 |
| | | dancing poet | 15 | 16.73 | 1.73 | 304.31 |
Now just simply S-Enter (org-table-copy-down) which will fill an incremented number downwards as far as you want:
| | Date | Horse | Stk | Ret | Prof | Total |
|---+--------+----------------+-----+-------+-------+--------|
| 1 | | | | | 0 | 306.9 |
| 2 | 27 May | aggagio | 15 | 7.68 | -7.32 | 299.58 |
| 3 | | red derek | 15 | 0 | -15 | 284.58 |
| 4 | 03 Jun | dear my friend | 10 | 0 | -10 | 274.58 |
| 5 | | the foxes | 10 | 32 | 22 | 296.58 |
| 6 | | sprewell | 10 | 16 | 6 | 302.58 |
| 7 | | dancing poet | 15 | 16.73 | 1.73 | 304.31 |
Now I can use a #+PLOT header to reference the first column for the x axis:
#+PLOT: title:"Betting" ind:1 deps:(7) type:2d with:lines set:"yrange [250:350]"
| | Date | Horse | Stk | Ret | Prof | Total |
|---+--------+----------------+-----+-------+-------+--------|
| 1 | | | | | 0 | 306.9 |
| 2 | 27 May | aggagio | 15 | 7.68 | -7.32 | 299.58 |
| 3 | | red derek | 15 | 0 | -15 | 284.58 |
| 4 | 03 Jun | dear my friend | 10 | 0 | -10 | 274.58 |
| 5 | | the foxes | 10 | 32 | 22 | 296.58 |
| 6 | | sprewell | 10 | 16 | 6 | 302.58 |
| 7 | | dancing poet | 15 | 16.73 | 1.73 | 304.31 |
which will produce the following plot:
Not such a downward spiral as I first thought!