gnuplot-beta

Gnuplot on Windows

[Reinier H. <re...@he...>]

Hi,

First of all: thanks for the great tool!

However, I have a few windows-specific issues integrating gnuplot with 
some software I'm writing. I use the python Gnuplot class to write 
commands to a gnuplot instance, which works very well.

When wgnuplot is closed manually, the pgnuplot program stays alive. It 
is therefore very hard to detect whether the gnuplot instance has been 
killed (in which case I want to respawn one). I've attached a patch to 
pgnuplot.c to fix this issue: it will check whether the wgnuplot process 
is still alive when it receives input. By writing an empty string from 
my python program twice (with a small delay in between) I can detect 
that wgnuplot is closed. Perhaps it would be even better to call 
select() on stdin, but I think this is usually good enough.

The second problem is that my programs spawns quite a few gnuplot 
instances, and they become hard to distinguish. On linux the wxt 
terminal supports a "title" option that allows to give the windows a 
title, e.g. set terminal wxt title "test". It would be great to have 
this in the windows terminal too. I think it shouldn't be too hard to 
do, but I don't exactly know where to start. Any pointers? I guess the 
first time the title is set is in src/win/winmain.c.

Regards,

-- 
Reinier Heeres
Waalstraat 17
2515 XK Den Haag
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 6 10852639

Re: Gnuplot on Windows

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> When wgnuplot is closed manually, the pgnuplot program stays alive. It is
> therefore very hard to detect whether the gnuplot instance has been killed (in
> which case I want to respawn one). I've attached a patch to pgnuplot.c to fix
> this issue: it will check whether the wgnuplot process is still alive when it
> receives input. By writing an empty string from my python program twice (with
> a small delay in between) I can detect that wgnuplot is closed. Perhaps it
> would be even better to call select() on stdin, but I think this is usually
> good enough.

There is a new pgnuplot replacement just available from cvs; we are 
discussing the proper name (pgnuplot? gnuplot?) -- you should have got a 
copy of this email. With this new pgnuplot you will have no such problems.

> The second problem is that my programs spawns quite a few gnuplot instances,
> and they become hard to distinguish. On linux the wxt terminal supports a
> "title" option that allows to give the windows a title, e.g. set terminal wxt
> title "test". It would be great to have this in the windows terminal too.

This feature is available in the development version 4.3.x since May.
It seems it would be interesting if this gets ported into 4.2.

Well, what about a portable way
	set termoption title "xxx"
Is this feasible?

---
PM

Re: Gnuplot on Windows

[Reinier H. <re...@he...>]

Hi,

Petr Mikulik wrote:
>> When wgnuplot is closed manually, the pgnuplot program stays alive. It is
>> therefore very hard to detect whether the gnuplot instance has been killed (in
>> which case I want to respawn one). I've attached a patch to pgnuplot.c to fix
>> this issue: it will check whether the wgnuplot process is still alive when it
>> receives input. By writing an empty string from my python program twice (with
>> a small delay in between) I can detect that wgnuplot is closed. Perhaps it
>> would be even better to call select() on stdin, but I think this is usually
>> good enough.
>>     
>
> There is a new pgnuplot replacement just available from cvs; we are 
> discussing the proper name (pgnuplot? gnuplot?) -- you should have got a 
> copy of this email. With this new pgnuplot you will have no such problems.
>   
That's great! I think calling it pgnuplot will indeed be the best 
option, since it would behave similar to the older version and require 
no changes to software depending on that. Do I understand correctly that 
this binary does not have a command input window next to stdin and stdout?

Btw, if the old pgnuplot is kept somewhere it still might be good to 
apply my patch so that it terminates if wgnuplot is closed.

>> The second problem is that my programs spawns quite a few gnuplot instances,
>> and they become hard to distinguish. On linux the wxt terminal supports a
>> "title" option that allows to give the windows a title, e.g. set terminal wxt
>> title "test". It would be great to have this in the windows terminal too.
>>     
>
> This feature is available in the development version 4.3.x since May.
> It seems it would be interesting if this gets ported into 4.2.
>   
Ah, sorry, I did not know. I will give the 4.3 test binary a try then! 
Also, backporting sounds reasonable if it's not too much work.

> Well, what about a portable way
> 	set termoption title "xxx"
> Is this feasible?
>   
Sounds good!

> ---
> PM
>
>   
Regards,

-- 
Reinier Heeres
Waalstraat 17
2515 XK Den Haag
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 6 10852639

Re: Gnuplot on Windows

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

	Hello Reinier,

> When wgnuplot is closed manually, the pgnuplot program stays alive. It is
> therefore very hard to detect whether the gnuplot instance has been killed (in
> which case I want to respawn one). I've attached a patch to pgnuplot.c to fix
> this issue: it will check whether the wgnuplot process is still alive when it
> receives input.

it seems your patch has not been applied. Can you please make it as a Patch 
on gnuplot sourceforge site so that people can comment on it and we can 
submit it to cvs afterwards?

There is another pgnuplot related issue there:
[ 1609845 ] quota limits pipe size in pgnuplot
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=102055&aid=1609845&group_id=2055

Could you make a patch for it as well?

Greetings,
  Petr