Bash script which plots data using XMGRACE tool

Question

I have written a bash script that generates files containing data and saves them to a directory. I would like my script to also plot these files using xmgrace.

Initially

Answer 1

Yes, it is possible to call xmgrace/Grace without the GUI (using gracebat), but the commands you have used must first be inside a script file.

Contents of file "script.bat":

xaxis label "Label 1" 
yaxis label "Label 2" 
DEVICE "EPS" OP "level2"
PRINT TO "plot.eps"
PRINT

Now, for a two-column data file "data.dat" you call a sister executable named gracebat which is the same as xmgrace but operates in batch mode (without the GUI):

gracebat -nosafe data.dat -batch script.bat

where

-batch <script> tells grace to look for and execute a script file (does not tell grace to run in batch mode!).

-nosafe overrides the default safe mode, which is supposed to stop file modifications. Without it you would see an error message (although in my case the plot file was still written).