Re: it seems my Gnuplot 4.0 didn't read my ~/.Xdefaults

[Dave D. <dde...@es...>]

Ethan A Merritt <merritt@u.washington.edu> writes:

> I think you may misunderstand how x11 works.
>
> (1)
> gnuplot (or any other x11 application) does not read the .Xdefaults
> file by itself.

   Instead, the x11 server reads the file when you
> begin a new X-session, and applies the values in finds there to
> answer queries from any applications (like gnuplot) that run later.



I don't think that's the entire story.

On linux (hostname "twoflower"):

$ echo test | strace -f gnuplot

...
open("/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Gnuplot", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
...
uname({sys="Linux", node="twoflower", ...}) = 0
open("/home/eclipse/ddenholm/.Xdefaults-twoflower", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)



On solaris (hostname "eclipse")

$ echo test | truss -f gnuplot

16820:  open("/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/Gnuplot", O_RDONLY) Err#2 ENOENT
...
16820:  sysinfo(SI_HOSTNAME, "eclipse", 64)             = 8
16820:  open("/home/eclipse/ddenholm/.Xdefaults-eclipse", O_RDONLY) = 6
16820:  xstat(2, "/home/eclipse/ddenholm/.Xdefaults-eclipse", 0x08046C94) = 0



so on my local setup at least, the application itself is looking for
files with application defaults. It actually seems to append the local
hostname to the filename - in both cases, DISPLAY was eclipse.



dd
-- 
Dave Denholm              <dde...@es...>       http://www.esmertec.com