## Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 John W. Eaton
##
## This file is part of Octave.
##
## Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
## any later version.
##
## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
## General Public License for more details.
##
## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
## Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
## 02110-1301, USA.

## -*- texinfo -*-
## @deftypefn {Function File} {} __pltopt__ (@var{caller}, @var{opt})
## Decode plot option strings.
##
## If @var{opt} is a valid option string, return a string of the form
## @code{"w l 2"} ("with lines 2").  Uses abbreviations for the options
## to avoid overrunning gnuplot's command line buffer unnecessarily.
##
## @var{opt} can currently be some combination of the following:
##
## @table @code
## @item "-"
## For lines plot style (default).
##
## @item "."
## For dots plot style.
##
## @item "@@"
## For points plot style.
##
## @item "-@@"
## For linespoints plot style.
##
## @item "^"
## For impulses plot style.
##
## @item "L"
## For steps plot style.
##
## @item "#"
## For boxes plot style.
##
## @item "~"
## For yerrorbars plot style.
##
## @item ">"
## For xerrorbars plot style.
##
## @item "~>"
## For xyerrorbars plot style.
##
## @item "#~"
## For boxerrorbars plot style.
##
## @item "#~>"
## For boxxyerrorbars plot style.
##
## @item "n"
## With @code{n} in 1-6 (wraps at 8), plot color
##
## @item "nm"
## With @code{m} in 1-6 (wraps at 6), point style (only valid for @code{"@@"} or
## @code{"-@@"})
##
## @item @var{c}
## Where @var{c} is one of @code{"r"}, @code{"g"}, @code{"b"}, @code{"m"},
## @code{"c"}, or @code{"w"} colors.
##
## @item ";title;"
## Here @code{"title"} is the label for the key.
##
## @item +
## @itemx *
## @itemx o
## @itemx x
## Used in combination with the points or linespoints styles, set the point
## style.
## @end table
##
## The legend may be fixed to include the name of the variable
## plotted in some future version of Octave.
##
## The colors, line styles, and point styles have the following
## meanings for X11 and Postscript terminals under Gnuplot 3.6.
##
## @example
## Number ------ Color -------  Line Style      ---- Points Style ----
##        x11       postscript  postscript      x11         postscript
## =====================================================================
##   1    red       green       solid           "o"         "+"
##   2    green     blue        long dash       "+"         "x"
##   3    blue      red         short dash     square       "*"
##   4    magenta   magenta     dotted          "x"        open square
##   5    cyan      cyan        dot long dash  triangle    filled square
##   6    brown     yellow      dot short dash  "*"         "o"
## @end example
## @seealso{__pltopt1__}
## @end deftypefn

## Author: jwe

function options = __pltopt__ (caller, opt)

  if (nargin == 2 && nargout == 1)
    if (ischar (opt))
      nel = rows (opt);
    elseif (iscellstr (opt))
      nel = numel (opt);
    else
      error ("__pltopt__: expecting argument to be character string or cell array of character strings");
    endif
    if (ischar (opt))
      opt = cellstr (opt);
    endif
    for i = nel:-1:1
      options(i) = __pltopt1__ (caller, opt{i});
    endfor
  else
    print_usage ();
  endif

endfunction
