Is there a standard file extension for gnuplot files?

Question

I saw .gnu , .plt and .gplot as file extensions for gnuplot scripts.

I know that Linux does not care about file extensions, but which extension most universally tells people: "I am a gnuplot script!"

Answer 1

According to Romain, Dr. Person and neillb all point and this wikibooks article confirms there is no official standard extension for gnuplot files.

These three file extensions are really popular:

 .gpi .plt .gp 

Of these, .gp is the shortest and it seems that it will have the least number of collisions with other programs. But the other two extensions are not used either. It shows that .plt used by HPGL plotters, and therefore some older Autocad files may have this extension. And files with the .gpi extension .gpi used by Garmin GPS devices. Fwiw, googling for "gnuplot file extension gp" returns a few more results than similar searches of .gpi and .plt

Although .gnuplot is a fair choice, it has seven characters. Long file extensions can potentially degrade readability in the terminal, because they open up the possibility of file names that are shorter than the file extension, and because longer extensions most often cause line breaks.

Answer 2

vim recognizes .gpi, for more details see Gnuplot Wikibook .

Answer 3

Gnuplot uses .gnu for demos on its website , so I believe that is the standard.

Answer 4

which extension most universally declares to people: "I am a gnuplot script!"

For this, " .gnuplot " is hard to beat!

It is not often (perhaps because it is a little longer), but it clearly tells the person what's inside the tin.

In contrast, Wikipedia lists six other file formats with the .plt extension.

Answer 5

I do not think that ".gnuplot" should have been accepted as an answer. Actually there is no answer. I saw and used the ".gp" in front of which is nice.

Answer 6

Wikipedia seems to suggest that .plt will be standard. At the same time, GnuPlot itself does not define any standard and makes it a free form, so in fact there is no extension that says "this is a gnuplot script".