[Kst] reading ASCII files / KST command line options

[Reimund rebel]

I want to use KST as a general Plot and View Tool in a test lab
environment. For several reasons we decided to store the measured data
in simple CSV files. The data sets contain a header (embedded in Comment
lines) with some information about the measurement itself. Then a line
with the column headers followed by the dataset.  I attached a sample.
One of the usage is to interactively view, post process and plot the
measured data. This works great since you can set the parameters for
reading the data file manually. The problem is the other usage to show
streamed data in real time during the measurement. Here the idea is to
start KST by calling it from the test program (Python) and control the
graphs either by command line options or by a previously generated
setup.kst file.   The command line option would be preffered, since the
calling program would have total control what to plot. For example:

kst  -x 1 -y 3 -y 4 -n 500 -m 1  -g  test.csv     or
kst  -x Time  -y Temp  -y V1 -n 500 -F test.csv   setup1.kst    

So far I had no luck with both of them. On a linux box,  I have the
feeling it does understand the command line but it seems to have trouble
reading the data in ending in blank graphs. On windows it behaves even
worse. It always shows just a blank screen and it looks like it does not
even read the setup.kst file

Attached a sample file and the setup.kst

When using the data wizard it can read the file and seems ok with the
format. It just does not follow the same rules for the data file
(komments, delimiter, skipped lines ...) when using the the command line
together with the -F option and the setup.kst file.

By the way is it possible to read data also from stdin or a pipe, this
would be an elegant way to plot directly from the test program.

Long term I also would be interested to write a plugin for a different
(binary) file format for exchange with a free circuit simulation tool
(Switcher CAD ).

I would appreciate if someone could help me with the ASCII file format
to get it to work from command line. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong
or if I just discovered a bug.
On the binary It would be great if someone could point me to the right
place how to get started with a plugin.

Best Regards

Reimund Rebel 

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