### 1.21 Start-up (initialization)

When gnuplot is run, it first looks for a system-wide initialization file named ‘gnuplotrc‘. The location of this file is determined when the program is built and is reported by loadpath. The program then looks in the user’s HOME directory for a file called ‘.gnuplot‘ on Unix-like systems or ‘GNUPLOT.INI‘ on other systems. (Windows and OS/2 will look for it in the directory named in the environment variable ‘GNUPLOT‘; Windows will use ‘USERPROFILE‘ if GNUPLOT is not defined). Note: The program can be configured to look first in the current directory, but this is not recommended because it is bad security practice.