ASPARK README === aspark is a C program to display ASCII Sparklines. It is completely useless in 2011. It is a bloated versions of https://github.com/holman/spark and is intended for Enterprise Companies. Basic usage --- The program has different operation modes to get data in different ways. The simplest default operation mode is getting data from the command line: $ ./aspark 1,2,3,4,10,7,6,5 `-_ __-` ` By default the program prints graphs using two rows. For better resolution you can change this using the --rows option: $ ./aspark 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,8,5,3,1 --rows 4 _-``_ _` -` ` _-` `_ Sometimes graphs are more readable if the area under the curve is filled, so a --fill option is provided: $ ./aspark 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,10,8,5,3,1 --rows 4 --fill _o##_ _#||||| o#|||||||# _o#||||||||||#_ It is possible to use labels, specifying them using a ':' character followed by the label in the list of comma separated values, like in the following example: $ ./aspark '1,2,3,4,5:peak,4,3,1,0:base' _-`-_ -` -_ p b e a a s k e Sometimes a logarithmic scale is to be preferred since difference betwen values can be too big: $ ./aspark 1,2,3,10,50,100 ` ____` $ ./aspark 1,2,3,10,50,100 --log -` __-` Stream mode --- In stream mode data is read form standard input, one value per each line: $ echo -e "1\n2\n3\n" | ./aspark --stream _` _ In this mode it is still possible to use labels, using a space and the label after the actual value, like in the following example: $ echo -e "1\n2 foo\n3\n" | ./aspark --stream _` _ f o o In stream mode it is often interesting to pipe data form other programs: $ ruby -e '(1..40).each{|x| print Math.sin(x/2),"\n"}' | ./aspark --stream --rows 4 --fill #### __## ##__ # ||||__ ||||## ##|||| __| #|||||| oo|||||| ||||||oo ||| |||||||oo__||||||||##__##||||||||__oo||| Characters frequency mode --- The last mode is enabled usign --txtfreq or --binfreq options. It is used to create a frequency table of the data received from standard input: $ cat /etc/passwd | ./aspark --txtfreq --fill --rows 4 o # # _ | | # | |#_ | | |_ | # __#o_ |||__ _________#____|__#_______|______||##|#o_|__|||||_|||||__#_ !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ You can see the frequency of every single byte using --binfreq. Check aspark --help for more information about the usage. Author --- aspark was developed by Salvatore Sanfilippo <antirez@gmail.com> during a few hours of complete relax. Since it is completely useless it will not be further developed by the author.