Just a reminder -- the mesa/star history files (e.g., LOGS/star.log) contain a line for each step,
including steps that were subsequently "thrown away" for some reason such as restart, retry,
or backup.  So when you make a plot in which you don't want to include discarded steps, you
need to remove them yourself.   I do this by using model numbers -- i.e., for each line, I discard
any previous lines in the log that have a model number >= this one.

My history scripts take care of this for you --- but when you write your own, it is up to you.

Here's my little ruby routine (from mesa/star/test/star_history/lib/history_logs.rb)
All of the columns of data are in the vector @columns, and this routine prunes them all
to remove all kinds of backups based on model_number.

Cheers,
Bill



   def remove_backups(dbg)
     # make a list of the ones to be removed
     lst = []
     n = @model_number.size
     (n-1).times do |k|
       lst << k if @model_number[k] >= @model_number[k+1..-1].min
     end
     return if lst.length == 0
     puts "remove #{lst.length} models because of backups" if dbg
     lst = lst.sort
     @columns.each { |vec| vec.prune!(lst) }
     num_models = @model_number.length
   end