[Plplot-general] 3 important changes in the cvs HEAD version of PLplot

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

In the last couple of weeks I have completed 3 important changes to plplot
that will affect all users using the current cvs HEAD.

(1) Because of name clash concerns the header naming style has now been
changed to the same style used by X.  The installed headers now are in
their own subdirectory called plplot:

irwin@starling> ls -l /usr/local/plplot/include/plplot
total 184
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    10372 Dec 27 17:39 drivers.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     4132 Dec 27 17:39 pdf.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     3157 Dec 27 17:39 plConfig.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     1771 Dec 27 17:39 plDevs.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     1382 Dec 27 17:39 plcdemos.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     2567 Dec 27 17:39 pldebug.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     7321 Dec 27 17:39 plevent.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    46264 Dec 27 17:39 plplot.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    17170 Dec 27 17:39 plplotP.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    22275 Dec 27 17:39 plstream.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    20290 Dec 27 17:39 plstrm.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     2052 Dec 27 17:39 pltcl.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software      979 Dec 27 17:39 pltk.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software     5115 Dec 27 17:39 plxwd.h
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    11945 Dec 27 17:39 tclMatrix.h

When compiling, the -I directory should remain the same (pointing to
$prefix/include), but your source code should change all occurrences of
#include "*.h" --> #include "plplot/*.h" where * is any of the PLplot header
file names (without .h suffix) above.  This massive source code change has
now been completed for all plplot routines and header files.

(2) The double-precision fortran examples work for the first time with
Linux. The way this was done was to abandon the old method of changing the
fortran precision (the -r8 compiler option) which did not work for all
compilers including g77. The new method uses m4 to create the fortran
example source (suffix of .f) from m4 source (suffix of .fm4), and should
work for all operating systems where m4 is available.  (And that should mean
most of them since m4 is part of the GNU tools which can be downloaded
and installed on most systems.)

(3) The libraries have been renamed in a consistent fashion.  The
complicated library name tagging system that was dependent on configure
options has largely been dropped.  The only part of this that is left is the
"d" suffix on core library names if double precision was configured.  (The
matrix library is an exception; no suffix is used in that case since the
library is single precision in all cases.) For Linux, all shared libraries
now have a 3-part version number, and the standard symbolic links (linker
name, and soname) are also created.  To help users get the library and other
linker options correct, I have made a script that echos the linker options
used when linking plrender.  For example, on my Linux system with
double-precision configured here is the result of running the script.

irwin@starling> /usr/local/plplot/bin/plplot_linkage 
 -L/usr/local/plplot/lib -lplplotd -lplmat -litk3.1 -ltk8.2 -litcl3.1 -ltcl8.2 -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11 -lvga -ldl -lm -lg2c -Wl,-rpath -Wl,/usr/local/plplot/lib

Results of this script on your system will vary of course depending on what
versions of all system libraries that you have and your configuration
options.

Here is a list of the current plplot libraries:

ls -l /usr/local/plplot/lib/ |grep -v '\.map' |grep -v '\.fnt'
total 1288
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    34310 Dec 27 17:39 libplcxxd.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       14 Dec 27 17:39 libplcxxd.so -> libplcxxd.so.5*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       20 Dec 27 17:39 libplcxxd.so.5 -> ./libplcxxd.so.5.0.1*
-rwxrwxr-x    1 software software    89968 Dec 27 17:37 libplcxxd.so.5.0.1*
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software    11762 Dec 27 17:39 libplmat.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       13 Dec 27 17:39 libplmat.so -> libplmat.so.5*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       19 Dec 27 17:39 libplmat.so.5 -> ./libplmat.so.5.0.1*
-rwxrwxr-x    1 software software    16565 Dec 27 17:37 libplmat.so.5.0.1*
-rw-rw-r--    1 software software   459048 Dec 27 17:39 libplplotd.a
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       15 Dec 27 17:39 libplplotd.so -> libplplotd.so.5*
lrwxrwxrwx    1 software software       21 Dec 27 17:39 libplplotd.so.5 -> ./libplplotd.so.5.0.1*
-rwxrwxr-x    1 software software   384395 Dec 27 17:37 libplplotd.so.5.0.1*

To avoid name clash problems all core names start with pl.  Also both static
and shared versions of the library are tagged identically, "d" for double
precision and no "d" if single precision or the matrix library.  I have also
taken this opportunity to move to lower case names.  These new library names
are still not chiselled in stone, and may change again within the week.  For
example, I am considering moving from plmat to plmatrix.  But in any case if
you look in the appropriate lib directory or pay attention to the results of
plplot_linkage, you should be okay.

These three changes have been thoroughly tested on my Linux (Debian potato)
system.  In fact, I would claim from the results of these Linux tests that
cvs HEAD is more stable than our 5.0.0 release.  (For access to the plplot
cvs HEAD follow the directions in www.sourceforge.net/projects/plplot.)
However, these changes are untested on non-Linux systems.  If these changes
generate a problem for any system, don't hesitate to get in touch with me,
but be prepared to do some of the work yourself to get things straightened
out since I don't have access to systems other than Linux.

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6 
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