[Plplot-devel] Re: Success With Shared Libs For Cygwin

[Alan W. I. <ai...@us...>]

Hi Ullal:

I hope my e-mail troubles at SF have been bypassed now so I am forwarding
this nice result to plplot_devel.  Other comments below.....Alan

On 2003-10-08 10:27+0530 Ullal Devappa Kini wrote:

> The programs are tiny (  30 to 450 Kb ) compared to the statically linked
> ones
> ( 1.8 to 2.2 Mb ; of course these have other drivers but the size difference
> is
> remarkable!).

I am pleased by your success with shared libraries on Cygwin.  To repeat the
limitations for the rest of the group, apparently Cygwin does not like a
mixture of static and shared libraries linked together.  libgd and some of
its dependent libraries are only available in static form on Cygwin for the
moment.  Same problem for libfreetype and libcd.  So in order to make shared
libraries work for PLplot, Ullal had to use the following configuration
options:

--disable-cgm --disable-png --disable-jpeg --without-freetype

These limitations will disappear when the Cygwin packagers catch up to the
shared library possibilities with libtool-1.5 (like Ullah has just
accomplished with plplot).  cgm, png, and jpeg are all known to work well
for the static library case on Cygwin.  (I don't think Ullal has tested the
freetype possibilities yet for the static case.)

IMPORTANT
Ullal, since shared libraries work so well, do you want to try the default
--enable-dyndrivers as well?  That will make libplplot much smaller since
the drivers will be independent plug-ins that the executable will dynamically
load as requested.

I also checked why you don't have python with shared libraries enabled, and
it appears our configuration is finding python okay, but not finding the
necessary Numerical python extension package on your machine.  Here are the
relevant lines from the configure output:

checking for Python.h... /usr/include/python2.2/Python.h
checking for arrayobject.h... no
warning: can't find arrayobject.h, setting numeric_python to no
plplot module needs Python numeric extension.
Setting enable_python to no

Can you use the locate command to look for arrayobject.h on your machine or
if it is not installed, look for the Cygwin package for Numeric 22.0 that is
supposed to go with python 2.2?  Numeric-22.0.tar.gz is available at
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1369, and I also
notice Numeric-22.0.win32-py2.2.exe there which might be relevant to the
Cygwin case.

Ullah, python is a lower priority than --enable-dyndrivers, but I thought I
would mention the cause of the plplot-python problems on your system just in
case you were interested in using python and plplot on Cygwin.

> Xwin, Xfig, PSC and PS work well. So does PLMETA ( using plrender ).
> Xterm does not work still.

I just checked here, and xterm works fine on Linux (within its software fill
limitations for some of the shaded and 3D shaded plots).  xterm is a device
defined for the tek.c driver code.  I believe it has been a while since
anybody has looked at that code, and it is possible there are some
maintenance issues for all the driver changes we have had in the last year,
and such an error might not give any problems on Linux but still be causing
problems on Cygwin.  Ullal, if you want to have a look at the tek.c
configuration, the recently updated README.drivers file should give you a
good introduction on what to look for.  From my perspective this is lower
priority than dyndrivers and python.

> Part 2. With octave
>
>    make >& mkplplot
>
> Error.

I looked further into that.

For the developers on list, here are the relevant octave lines from the
configuration on Cygwin:

checking for octave... yes
checking Octave version... 2.1.31
checking Octave prefix... /usr/local
checking Octave m dir... /usr/local/plplot/share/octave/site/m
checking Octave oct dir... /usr/local/plplot/share/plplot_octave

All seems to be well at this stage, but the build step fails because it
cannot find oct.h. Joao, do you have a clue what the fix might be?  BTW, I
have never really trusted that the octave-based configuration that we use is
going to work cross-platform so if there is no easy cure for this on Cygwin,
we might want to try an autotools based approach instead.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

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

Programming affiliations with the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org), the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net), the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net), and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________