1.21.1 Substitution of system commands in backquotes

Command-line substitution is specified by a system command enclosed in backquotes. This command is spawned and the output it produces replaces the backquoted text on the command line. Some implementations also support pipes; see special-filenames.

Command-line substitution can be used anywhere on the `gnuplot` command line, except inside strings delimited by single quotes.

Example:

This will run the program `leastsq` and replace `leastsq` (including backquotes) on the command line with its output:

           f(x) = `leastsq`
     

or, in VMS

           f(x) = `run leastsq`
     

These will generate labels with the current time and userid:

           set label "generated on `date +%Y-%m-%d` by `whoami`" at 1,1
           set timestamp "generated on %Y-%m-%d by `whoami`"