[rrd-developers] Re: Dashed lines, LINE-syntax

[Alex van den Bogaerdt]

On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:38:04PM +0200, John wrote:

> "LINE:incoming/stack" is unambiguous and allows keeping the old syntax
> for backward compatibility, that's why I suggested to use something
> other than ":" or "#". Of course, one could use named arguments just
> for new stuff, say "LINE2:in#ff0000:Incoming::dash=2,3", but "::" is a
> bit unintuitive, isn't it? (Note that this isn't a problem for DEF
> since all previous arguments are required.)

Would you have prefered STACKEDLINE:in#FF0000 ?
And DASHEDLINE:in#FF0000
And DASHEDSTACKEDLINE:in#FF0000

etc. ?

Or: forbid the legend "STACK" ?

That double colon was necessary IMO.  That is, to allow stacking
lines on top of areas and vice versa.

Perhaps it is time to change rrd-graph entirely, perhaps something
like CSS.  Style options then do not need to go on one line, no need
to have empty fields for unused operators, easy to expand.

Example:

somename {
source:		in;
color:		#FF0000;
width:		3.5;
stacked:	true;
dashed:		2/3;
legend:		"Incoming";
}
othername {
source:		out;
color:		#0000FF;
/* stacked defaults to false */
/* dashed defaults to 1, meaning solid line */
legend:		"Outgoing";
}
AREA:othername
GPRINT:out:"%6.2lf\n"
LINE:somename
GPRINT:in:"%6.2lf\n"


Or even:

somename {
style:		line;
source:		in;
... and so on ... 
}
othername {
style:		area;
source:		out;
... and so on ... 
}
PLOT:othername
PLOT:somename
LEGEND:somename
GPRINT:in:"%6.2lf\n"
LEGEND:othername
GPRINT:out:"%6.2lf\n"


and we have solved the legend ordering challenge as well.  User decides.

Also:
canvas {
style:		mrtg; /* mrtg lookalike; others will sure follow */
direction:	oldest_first; /* or oldest_last */
border:		solid black 1px;
title:		"xyz router bandwidth";
}
xgrid {
xaxis-scale:	auto;
xaxis-major:	day;
xaxis-minor:	8 hours;
... and so on ... all of the "--x-grid" options
}
... and so on ... most if not all other flags.



Either XML-alike or CSS-alike will do.


-- 
Alex van den Bogaerdt
http://www.vandenbogaerdt.nl/rrdtool/

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