In addition to the two main styles we have encountered for the plotting of 2D data or functions—namely a curve or a series of markers—gnuplot offers a third style consisting of a curve overlaid with markers. This style is useful in plotting tabulated data, where different marker styles can be used to distinguish between different data sets and the smooth line connecting them serves to guide the eye. The linespoints style is also favored by some even when plotting mathematical functions, where different marker styles are used to indicate the function being plotted rather than different line types (dot and dash patterns).
The next recipe shows in detail how to select these various marker styles; here we introduce the use of the linespoints plotting style.
The following command creates the previous figure:
plot sin(x)/x with linespoints ps 2 pt 6
