Gnuplot: Plot stepwise discontinuities in a cumulative distriubtion

Question

When I plot a cumulative distribution with gnuplot, it interpolates between datapoints; this is seen in the purple curve. How can I plot my data as a stepwise function like the black curve? Something similar to the step method in matplotlib.

Source data

1,1,0
1,2,0
1,3,0
1,4,2
1,5,1
1,6,3
1,7,3
1,8,1
1,9,3
1,10,8
1,11,1
1,12,0
1,13,3

Gnuplot source

set terminal pngcairo font ",14"
set output "cumulative.png"
#set terminal qt font ",14"
set title "Cumulative count" font ",16"
set xlabel "episode"
set ylabel "cumulative count"
set xtics 1
set key bottom right
set grid
unset border

set datafile separator comma
plot "season-01-count.csv" u 2:($3) smooth cumulative title "cumulative count"

Answer 1

Have you done a search or checked the manual at all? Check help steps or check here: http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/demo_5.2/steps.html or the graph here: How to plot same value until it change?

Code:

### plot with steps
reset session

$Data <<EOD
1,1,0
1,2,0
1,3,0
1,4,2
1,5,1
1,6,3
1,7,3
1,8,1
1,9,3
1,10,8
1,11,1
1,12,0
1,13,3
EOD

set title "Cumulative count" font ",16"
set xlabel "episode"
set ylabel "cumulative count"
set xtics 1
set key bottom right
set grid
unset border

set datafile separator comma
plot $Data u 2:($3) smooth cumulative with steps lw 2 lc "red" ti "cumulative count"
### end of code

Result: