PLplot

On 2008-12-10 11:24-0500 Alexy Khrabrov wrote:

> Greetings -- I've built the whole gnome thing in macports with
> +no_x11, using gtk-osx.  Which configuration options should be given
> to plplot so that it doesn't use X11 at all, but only the quartz?
> Apparently the portfile for plplot in the current macports doesn't
> include the variant +no_x11, and I'd like to concoct one myself after
> I thoroughly understand what it needs to hear.

Our CMake-based build system looks for X, but if it is not present the build
system sets certain CMake variables which are then used to automatically
exclude the X-dependent components such as Tk language support and the
xwin and tk device drivers.

So I suspect you don't have to do anything at all.  If you do try a PLplot
build in an environment without X, and our build system logic tries to build
an X-dependent component of PLplot in error, please let us know so we can
fix that build-system bug.

Note you also have complete hands-on control of what components of PLplot
are built, if you don't like these build decisions to be made automatically.
For example, if you want to specifically disable the tk language then
specify -DENABLE_tk=OFF as a cmake option.  (That should automatically
disable the tk device as well.) If you want to specifically disable the xwin
device, then specify -DPLD_xwin=OFF as a cmake option.

Hope this response to your question helps, and good luck with your use of
PLplot!

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

I've checked plplot out of svn, and followed instructions from the  
wiki at

http://www.miscdebris.net/plplot_wiki/index.php?title=Building_PLplot

Now there's no plplot_cmake at the top level of the svn distro.  If I  
just specify the plplot directory, cmake does generate a Makefile --  
in the source directory.  Trying to run it form a separate build  
directory doesn't work.

Can you please show the command sequence necessary to build in a  
separate directory?

Cheers,
Alexy

On 2008-12-11 00:57-0500 Alexy Khrabrov wrote:

> I've checked plplot out of svn, and followed instructions from the
> wiki at
>
> http://www.miscdebris.net/plplot_wiki/index.php?title=Building_PLplot
>
> Now there's no plplot_cmake at the top level of the svn distro.  If I
> just specify the plplot directory, cmake does generate a Makefile --
> in the source directory.  Trying to run it form a separate build
> directory doesn't work.

The last option of the svn checkout command is the name of the (initially
empty) directory where you want the source tree to be downloaded.  So it
appears from above that you specified plplot rather than plplot_cmake, but
you can use any name you desire.

Then to build in an initially empty build tree do the following

1. Create the empty build directory and cd to it.

N.B. the "build_dir" name is arbitrary and you can use anything for that so
long as you are consistent and you don't mind the directory being initially
destroyed by the rm -rf command.

rm -rf build_dir
mkdir build_dir
cd build_dir

2. Do the configuration, build, and install.

# Replace ../plplot_cmake with whatever you have named your svn checkout
# directory.  -Doptions can be a lot of things mentioned in the wiki.
cmake -Doptions ../plplot_cmake

make

#ctest is optional and requires -DBUILD_TEST=ON cmake option above
ctest

# Installs in prefix directory you specify by appropriate -D option for
# above cmake command.
make install

Hope this overview helps.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Ah, I see what the issue was -- I first called

cmake .

-- in the source directory; then calling cmake /path/to/source from a  
separate build directory still placed the Makefile in the original  
source.

I guess the desired behavior would be to notice we're in a new build  
directory and switch to it, instead of clinging to the source.

I had to move aside the old source and checkout anew to be able to  
follow the wiki...  But now it all built fine.  One snag was, I had  
Intel Fortran with an expired trial, and cmake choked on that -- it  
could call ifort, but it returned error on exit.  This is basically  
not worse than not having it, so it should have simply been disabled  
(and I do have gfortran on which cmake could have fallen back, but  
didn't).

Overall, an interesting thing, cmake.  I used ccmake to tweak its  
settings, and it's rather amusing.  The make is with colors and  
progress percentages, very cool.
Cheers,
Alexy