Instead of producing a graph, the `table` terminal prints out the points on which a graph would be based, i.e., the results of processing the `plot` or `splot` command, in a multicolumn ASCII table of X Y {Z} R values. The character R takes on one of three values: "i" if the point is in the active range, "o" if it is out-of-range, or "u" if it is undefined. The data format is determined by the format of the axis labels (see `set format`), and the columns are separated by single spaces.
For those times when you want the numbers, you can display them on the screen or save them to a file. This can be useful if you want to generate contours and then save them for further use, perhaps for plotting with `plot`; see contour for an example. The same method can be used to save interpolated data (see samples and dgrid3d)."