printing graphs automatically from Oct1.1.1

[John Beale]

I find the many commands needed in Octave 1.1.1 to switch Gnuplot to
"postscript", output to "file" etc. annoying, so I wrote the "print.m"
command as included below. I only just got Octave last week so I'm not
writing clean code, eg using a local variable or even clearing the variable
afterwards.

It would be nice to check that a plot actually exists, since if replot
fails, the code will exit with terminal still set to postscript and the
output redirected, a bad thing.  Also, how do I check which kind of
terminal is currently set so I can reset it at the end? Does anyone know?
thanks,

-john

John Beale   -------------------------  address@hidden
--------------------------    http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~beale


# -------------------------------------------------------
# Octave .m file to print image on lpr
# For some reason,  set output "|lpr"   doesn't work on my system,
# so I use a temporary file and a system call, which does work.
# (Octave v1.1.1 and Gnuplot v3.5 pl3.50.1.17 on DEC-Ultrix-4.2a)

# John P Beale 6/14/95

function print()

ttemp_zz = automatic_replot;

aa_zz = ["automatic_replot = \"false\";"];
eval(aa_zz);

# aa_zz = ["show terminal"];
# string = eval(aa_zz);
# hmm, how to get current terminal setting? ohwell.

aa_zz = ["set terminal postscript"];
eval(aa_zz);

# set output to filename
fname_zz = octave_tmp_file_name;
aa_zz = ["set output \"", fname_zz, "\"" ];
eval(aa_zz);

replot;

# print file
aa_zz = ["system(\"lpr ",fname_zz,"\")"];
eval(aa_zz);

# clean up file afterwards
aa_zz = ["system(\"rm -f ",fname_zz,"\")"];
eval(aa_zz);

aa_zz = ["automatic_replot = \"",ttemp_zz,"\";"];
eval(aa_zz);

aa_zz = ["set terminal x11"];
eval(aa_zz);

endfunction