--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/tools/plotting/plotter.py	Fri Mar 09 19:37:19 2012 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+# python histogram input_file output_file column bins 
+import sys, os
+import matplotlib; matplotlib.use('Agg')
+
+from pylab import *
+
+assert sys.version_info[:2] >= ( 2, 4 )
+
+def stop_err(msg):
+    sys.stderr.write(msg)
+    sys.exit()
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    # parse the arguments
+    
+    if len(sys.argv) != 6:
+        stop_err('Usage: python histogram.py input_file column bins output_file style')
+        sys.exit()
+
+    mode = sys.argv[5]
+    HIST = mode == 'hist'
+    try:
+        col =  int(float(sys.argv[2]))
+        if HIST:
+            bin = int(float(sys.argv[3]))
+        else:
+            # hack, this parameter is the plotting style for scatter plots
+            if sys.argv[3] == 'P':
+                style = 'o'
+            elif sys.argv[3] == 'LP':
+                style = 'o-'
+            else:
+                style = '-'
+
+    except:
+        msg = 'Parameter were not numbers %s, %s' % (sys.argv[3], sys.argv[4])
+        stop_err(msg)
+
+    # validate arguments
+    inp_file = sys.argv[1]
+    out_file = sys.argv[4]
+
+    if HIST:
+        print "Histogram on column %s (%s bins)" % (col, bin)
+    else:
+        print "Scatterplot on column %s" % (col)
+
+    xcol= col -1
+    # read the file
+    values = []
+    try:
+        count = 0
+        for line in file(inp_file):
+            count += 1
+            line = line.strip()
+            if line and line[0] != '#':
+                values.append(float(line.split()[xcol]))
+    except Exception, e:
+        stop_err('%s' % e)
+        stop_err("Non numerical data at line %d, column %d" % (count, col) )
+
+    # plot the data
+
+    if HIST:
+        n, bins, patches = hist(values, bins=bin, normed=0)
+    else:
+        plot(values, style)
+    
+    xlabel('values')
+    ylabel('counts')
+
+    if HIST:
+        title('Histogram of values over column %s (%s bins)' % (col, len(bins)) )
+    else:
+        title('Scatterplot over column %s' % col )        
+    grid(True)
+    
+    # the plotter detects types by file extension
+    png_out = out_file + '.png' # force it to png
+    savefig(png_out)
+
+    # shuffle it back and clean up
+    data = file(png_out, 'rb').read() 
+    fp = open(out_file, 'wb')
+    fp.write(data)
+    fp.close()
+    os.remove(png_out)