Windows: Installing Python's Gnuplot Interface

Gnuplot.py is a module for plotting with Gnuplot from Python.

• The homepage for the module is located here:
  http://gnuplot-py.sourceforge.net/.
• I downloaded gnuplot-py-1.7.zip from:
  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=17434&package_id=14005&release_id=191948.

Here's how to install Gnuplot 4.0 if haven't already done so.

• See this link for current information: http://www.gnuplot.info/
• Follow links at above site. I downloaded gp400win32.zip from
  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2055&package_id=1996&release_id=231440.
• Unzip gnuplot zip file into desired location, C:\Program Files\Gnuplot for example. Be sure to keep directory structure when unzipping.
• Modify your path to include location of executables, C:\Program Files\Gnuplot\bin\ for example.
• You should be able to run Gnuplot at this point. Go to the ..\bin directory and click on wgnuplot.exe. You should see a GUI interface to gnuplot start. Try some of the demos.

Now, back to installing the Python module.

• Unzip gnuplot-py-1.7.zip into a temporary location, keeping directory structure.
• Start command console (Start->Run->"type cmd").
• Change to this temporary directory and find the file setup.py within the directory structure.
• Type: python setup.py install.
• You should see lines of output flash by you and, hopefully, no errors.
• Test it out:
  • Start iPython and cd to the location of the Gnuplot module, probably c:\Python23\Lib\site-packages\Gnuplot\ on your XP machine.
  • Run demo by typing run demo.py.
  • You should see a sequence of demo plots.