Why is ^C activating Gnuplot?

[John Eaton]

Eyal Doron <address@hidden> wrote:

:    Maybe someone (John?) can shed light on this. I have
: automatic_replot="true". Now, whenever I abort a calculation
: using Ctrl-C, the gnuplot window comes to the top. Why? This
: is not in the middle of a graphics operation, just a normal
: calculation.

When gnuplot is executed from Octave, they are both in the same
process group.  When you send an interrupt signal with Control-C, it
is delivered to both processes.  When Octave gets an interrupt signal,
it attempts to stop the current calculation (if any) and return to the
top-level prompt.  It appears that gnuplot (at least as of version 3.5)
responds to interrupts by going into graphics mode.  If you are using
X, that means that the graphics window is raised and the cursor is
warped there.  This should be independent of the value of
automatic_replot.

I don't particularly like this behavior either.  Does anyone know if
gnuplot 3.6 also works this way (raising the plot window on replot or
interrupt)?

jwe