Gnuplot Data

Gnuplot can take data from a file, or from the output stream of a program, or generate its own. The basic file data format used is very simple: columns of numbers, any of which can become the x- or y- (or z-) variable in a graph. For example: 
0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 ...
0.012566 0.012566 0.999921
0.025133 0.025130 0.999684
0.037699 0.037690 0.999289
0.050265 0.050244 0.998737
0.062832 0.062791 0.998027
0.075398 0.075327 0.997159
0.087965 0.087851 0.996134
0.100531 0.100362 0.994951
 .
 .
 .
etc.

We'll see in a moment how gnuplot interprets and plots this input stream.