From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Mueen Nawaz <mailinglists@nawaz.org>
Subject: Re: Plotting (with gnuplot) using dates timestamps
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:09:44 -0700
Message-ID: <877gy299nr.fsf@fester.com>
References: <E6687F9A-273E-4953-B411-BFF696374F93@polytechnique.org>
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Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to plot the following table, but the dates part is all
> wrong. Is there a way to tell gnuplot what the date format is?
>
> #+tblname: data-table
> | Date             |     HP |     HC |
> |------------------+--------+--------|
> | [2011-08-20 Sat] | 006815 | 008399 |
> | [2011-08-29 Mon] | 006840 | 008438 |
> | [2011-09-11 Sun] | 006946 | 008552 |
> | [2011-12-11 Sun] | 007805 | 009603 |
> | [2012-03-04 Sun] | 008800 | 010826 |
> | [2012-03-11 Sun] | 008876 | 010930 |
> | [2012-03-25 Sun] | 009015 | 011121 |


Although you solved the problem, another solution for headaches like
these is simply to preprocess the table in something like Perl/Python
(within your org file using Babel) to get the desired string
format. Then pass the resulting array/list to gnuplot.

The solution you were provided is probably the way to go, but keep this
strategy in mind - sometimes it's just not worth the effort to solve
everything in one language.