Getting Started

This guide is designed as a short, practical path:

Install dependencies
Generate your first plot
Learn how output files are created
Use shared axes and custom data file names

Installation

Requirements

Python 3.7 or later
numpy >= 1.16.0

Install gleplot

From source (recommended for development):

git clone https://github.com/BenHuddart/gleplot.git
cd gleplot
pip install -e .

With development dependencies:

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Install GLE (optional but recommended)

GLE is required for direct PDF/PNG/EPS compilation. The recommended install path is the official release page:

Verify your install:

gle -finddeps
gle -info

First Plot (Step by Step)

import numpy as np
import gleplot as glp

# 1) Create data
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x)

# 2) Create figure and axis
fig = glp.figure(figsize=(8, 6))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)

# 3) Plot and label
ax.plot(x, y, label='sin(x)')
ax.set_xlabel('x')
ax.set_ylabel('y')
ax.set_title('My first gleplot figure')
ax.legend()

# 4) Save
fig.savefig('first_plot.gle')  # Always works (script + data files)
fig.savefig('first_plot.pdf')  # Requires GLE installed

How Output Files Work

When you call savefig, gleplot writes:

a main .gle script file
one or more external .dat files containing plotting data

By default, data files use a global pattern like data_0.dat, data_1.dat, etc.

New: Custom Data File Names

Use data_prefix when creating a figure (or via subplots) to control the data-file naming scheme.

import numpy as np
import gleplot as glp

x = np.linspace(0, 1, 20)
y = x**2

fig = glp.figure(data_prefix='experimentA')
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y)
fig.savefig('experimentA_plot.gle')

This produces files such as:

experimentA_plot.gle
experimentA_0.dat

New: Shared Axes in Subplots

For aligned multi-panel figures, share the x-axis or y-axis across subplots.

import numpy as np
import gleplot as glp

x = np.linspace(0, 10, 200)
fig, axes = glp.subplots(3, 1, sharex=True, figsize=(8, 10))

axes[0].plot(x, np.sin(x))
axes[1].plot(x, np.cos(x))
axes[2].plot(x, np.sin(x) + np.cos(x))
axes[2].set_xlabel('time')

fig.savefig('shared_x_example.gle')

With sharex=True, only the bottom row shows x tick labels and x-axis label. With sharey=True, only the leftmost column shows y tick labels and y-axis label.