Help with Reading and Plotting .pl4 Files Using Dislin in Python

[Abreha Asgedom]

Dear Dislin Team,

I have a .pl4 file generated from ATP-EMTP software that I would like to analyze and plot using Dislin. Since Dislin is a powerful tool for plotting, I would like to take advantage of its features.
I have successfully installed Dislin on Ubuntu and configured it with Python. However, I am not sure which classes or functions in Dislin can help me read and plot a .pl4 file.
I would appreciate any guidance or suggestions you could provide.

Thank you very much for your support.

Best regards,
Abraham

[Helmut Michels]

Dear Abraham,

sorry, there is no way for reading .pl4 files with Dislin. These files seem to be very special. I could not find

any documentation of the file format. To use .pl4 files with Dislin you have to extract the data from the files,

but I don't know how to do it.

With best regards,

Helmut

[Ian Lilly]

Abraham,

See this: https://filext.com/file-extension/PL4

it states that you need access to the software used to create the file to be able to read it as apparently there's no documentation (public) describing it.

Regards,

Ian

Ian Lilly (GMAIL)
ianj...@gmail.com
AU: +61 4 22 84 15 11
   

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[Loo X]

Probably check out https://github.com/ldemattos/readPL4

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[Abreha Asgedom]

Thanks Helmut, Ian and all for your active responses. In windows PlotXY can plot .pl4 file;  in Linux, I will try the one you suggested (readPL4) and plot it with dislin after reading/parsing.

Abraham 

[oph]

Dear Abreha Asgedom,

I am a developer of ATP-EMTP and author of the gtpplot graphing program, which has been using DISLIN for many years.

.pl4 files support different formats as specified in the “startup” file.

The internal structure of binary formats (C-like, PISA, etc.) is not freely available.

You can try the ASCII formats (values in columns separated by spaces), which are easy to interpret, since everything is in plain text.

There is a format defined in FMTPL4 that can be adjusted with F10.5, for example, or with wide10, which is simpler. The 10 I wrote is an example; you can use another value.

The only problem with these ASCII or text formats is that they require a little more ATP execution time.

I suppose you can modify the startup to create the format you can handle.

Best regards,

OPH. 2025-10-19 20:38 UTC-3

[oph]

Dear Abreha Asgedom.

I you need only to process .pl4 files in Linux, you can try gtpplot for Linux. It reads all the ATP .pl4 formats and make plots and some calculation with data.

gtpplot can save the data in a simple csv file that can be opened by Excel or Libre Office or you program in Python. Gtpplot, as ATP-EMTP, is a cost-free program.

Regards

OPH. 2025-10-19 21:21 UTC-3

El martes, 29 de abril de 2025 a las 11:40:21 UTC-3, Abreha Asgedom escribió: