Recent changes to 2856: logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Ethan Merritt — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 04:08:35 -0000

status: open --> pending-fixed

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Ethan Merritt — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 04:38:59 -0000

Hmm. OK. I saw something else initially but now I can reproduce your report. I don't know what is going on here.

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:17:41 -0000

The syntax is set xtics <incr> | <start>, <incr> {,<end>}, so my command set xtics 10 is correct too, actually it is equivalent to your command set xtics 1.e6, 10.
Neither your command nor my command produce meaningful x-axis tics. Only default setting of xtics (no command) produces correct tics on x-axis, even though the default settins should be eqivalent to:
set xtics 10
or
set xtics 1e6,10
or
set xtics 1e6,1e8

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Ethan Merritt — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:45:25 -0000

The syntax is set xtics <start>,<increment>{,<end>}. For log scale axes the increment is multiplicative rather than additive.
So to place major tics as you describe, the command would be
set xtics 1.e6, 10
Which is what you get by default.

Minor tics are a separate command, but what you describe (I thiink) is also what you get by default.

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:58:06 -0000

I disagree. There should be no error message. On x-axis with logarithmic scaling and "set xtics 10" I expect major tic on every decimal-multiple value, and 8 minor tics between major tics (for 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-multiple). The range 1e6-1e9 contains 28 tics. The range 1e6-1e8 should contain 19 tics, and that is far from "1e+07" tics, therefore the message is nonsense.

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Ethan Merritt — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:33:08 -0000

But the error message is correct, right? What tick placement are you trying to obtain?

#2856 logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:26:36 -0000

Description has changed:

Diff:

--- old
+++ new
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@

 Change first line to
 ~~~
-set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e8 ]
+set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e9 ]
 ~~~
 or eliminate the third line (set xtics 10), and the error is gone.
 (gnuplot v6.0.4, win11 64-bit 25H2)

Group: -->
Priority: -->

logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:25:24 -0000

Commands:

set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e8 ]
set logscale x
set xtics 10
plot x

results in no tics on x-axis, and gnuplot writes:
"warning: Too many axis ticks requested (>1e+07)"

Change first line to

set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e8 ]

or eliminate the third line (set xtics 10), and the error is gone.
(gnuplot v6.0.4, win11 64-bit 25H2)

Similar bug report: https://sourceforge.net/p/gnuplot/bugs/1971/

logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:25:24 -0000

Ticket 2856 has been modified: logscale - Too many axis ticks requested
Edited By: Peter Gasparovic (buteo)
Description updated:
--- description-old

+++ description-new

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@

Change first line to
~~~
-set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e8 ]
+set xrange [ 1e6 : 1e9 ]
~~~
or eliminate the third line (set xtics 10), and the error is gone.
(gnuplot v6.0.4, win11 64-bit 25H2)

logscale - Too many axis ticks requested

Peter Gasparovic — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:25:24 -0000

Ticket 2856 has been modified: logscale - Too many axis ticks requested
Edited By: Ethan Merritt (sfeam)
Status updated: 'open' => 'pending-fixed'