Getting the axis numbers right

Suppose you want a y-axis number range from 0 to 0.0008 and an x-axis number range from -40 to 30. You set the axis scales with the commands below and by default you will get the left axis box in the figure below.

 SCALE -40 30 0 .0008  ! x-axis: -40 to 30,  y-axis: 0 to 0.0008
 GRAPH\AXESONLY        ! only plot the axes
 

But suppose you want the y-axis numbers to be of the form n.0 with something like (×10-m) included as part of the y-axis label. Then you could enter the commands below to produce the axis box on the right in the figure.

 SET YPOWERAUTO 0        ! do not automatically calculate the y-axis power 
 SET YPOWER -4           ! set the y-axis power
 SET YNUMBEROFDECIMALS 1 ! number of decimal places for y-axis numbers
 SET YNUMBEROFDIGITS 3   ! number of digits for y-axis numbers
 SCALE -40 30 0 .0008    ! set the axis scales after the numbering format
 GRAPH\AXESONLY          ! just plot the axes
 

  A script to plot a curve with axes