Re: problems revealed by new demos

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Ethan Merritt wrote:

[...]
> But a change to TERM_TABLE might resolve the more general
> problem seen in vector.dem, that the sequence 
> 	set term push
> 	set term <new>
> 	set output
> 	replot
> 	set term pop
> loses the original output setting.

I don't think these two are actually much related to each other.

The problem with the above sequence from vector.dem is mainly in the way
'set term push/pop' operate: they store the *command line* options of the
terminal, but they don't (and can't) store its internal state.  Which
means that 'set term push' closes the terminal (e.g. post.trm will write
out its epilogue), and 'set term pop' opens it again (so post.trm will
output the prologue with the next plot).  So even if we did keep the
output file open by storing its handle across the push/pop interval, the
contents of the file would probably be unusable afterwards.  

Not to mention what may happen if some smartass tries

	set term post
	set out 'my.ps'
	# plot something
	set term push
	set term post color
	set out 'my.ps'
	replot
	set term pop
	replot

In the current state of things, I suspect the only choice would be to
either declare 'set term push' an error if an output file is open, or make
it imply a 'set out' to close the file.

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.