3.1 The Commandline Environment

PyXPlot uses the GNU Readline command-line environment, which means that the up and down arrow keys can be used to repeat previously executed commands. Each user’s command history is stored in his homespace in a history file called ‘.pyxplot_history’, allowing PyXPlot to remember command histories between sessions. Additionally, a save command is provided, allowing the user to save his command history from the present session to a text file; this has the following syntax:

save 'output_filename'

From the shell command line, the PyXPlot accepts the following switches which modify its behaviour:

-h –help

Display a short help message listing the available command-line switches.

-v –version

Display the current version number of PyXPlot.

-q –quiet

Turn off the display of the welcome message on startup.

-V –verbose

Display the welcome message on startup, as happens by default.

-c –colour

Use colour highlightingThis will only function on terminals which support colour output. to display output in green, warning messages in amber, and error messages in red.The author apologies to those members of the population who are red/green colourblind, but draws their attention to the following sentence. These colours can be changed in the terminal section of the configuration file; see Section 4.1 for more details.

-m –monochrome

Do not use colour highlighting, as happens by default.