matplotlib-users

[Matplotlib-users] Build for python2.2?

[Gary S. <st...@nm...>]

Hi,

I recently found matplotlib and think it's _exactly_ what the python 
environment needs from the scientific perspective ... interactive plotting 
as good as (or better than) Matlab's, that also makes it easy for Matlab 
users to be converted. ;-) I'm very impressed in the effort-to-date. 
Unfortunately, other software I use forces me to stay with python2.2, and 
I'm having tremendous trouble building matplotlib for win32. Might someone 
have a pointer to a self-installing executable for matplotlib compiled 
against python2.2 that is a more recent version than v0.54.1??

Thanks! And cheers to all the developers of this package.

-best
Gary

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Build for python2.2?

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "Gary" == Gary Strangman <st...@nm...> writes:


    Gary> I recently found matplotlib and think it's _exactly_ what
    Gary> the python environment needs from the scientific perspective
    Gary> ... interactive plotting as good as (or better than)
    Gary> Matlab's, that also makes it easy for Matlab users to be
    Gary> converted. ;-) I'm very impressed in the
    Gary> effort-to-date. Unfortunately, other software I use forces
    Gary> me to stay with python2.2, and I'm having tremendous trouble
    Gary> building matplotlib for win32. Might someone have a pointer
    Gary> to a self-installing executable for matplotlib compiled
    Gary> against python2.2 that is a more recent version than
    Gary> v0.54.1??

    Gary> Thanks! And cheers to all the developers of this package.

Hi Gary - thanks for the kind words (and thanks for the stats module
as well, which I've been using intermittently for years).

There is a bug in the _tkagg extension in the python2.2 build which
has never been tracked down and fixed, which is why we stopped
releasing it.  You get a missing DLL error when you try and load it.
I opened _tkagg.pyd in dependency walker, and the DLL is one of the
Visual Studio .NET dlls - though sometimes dependency walker fives
false alarms.

As I write this, it occurs to me the problem that arose in 2.2 may
have been coincident in my changing build environments (I don't know
if Todd experienced a similar problem with his numarray builds with
tkagg and python2.2, but I think he may have ...).

The other backends still work fine for python2.2 (GTKAgg, WXAgg,
etc...).  I don't know if you can use these, though, since you
specifically mentioned interactivity in your post.  I'd be happy to
send this build to you if you like (I built it for 0.61.0 yesterday
after your email).

The other options are

 - I can try and build on my old computer where maybe the problem
   doesn't exist and hence tkagg would work

 - I can try and fix the problem!  Clearly the best solution, but I
   don't have any great leads right now.

Are you primarily a numarray or Numeric user?

Cheers,
JDH

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Build for python2.2?

[Todd M. <jm...@st...>]

On Wed, 2004-08-11 at 09:07, John Hunter wrote:
> >>>>> "Gary" == Gary Strangman <st...@nm...> writes:
> 
> 
>     Gary> I recently found matplotlib and think it's _exactly_ what
>     Gary> the python environment needs from the scientific perspective
>     Gary> ... interactive plotting as good as (or better than)
>     Gary> Matlab's, that also makes it easy for Matlab users to be
>     Gary> converted. ;-) I'm very impressed in the
>     Gary> effort-to-date. Unfortunately, other software I use forces
>     Gary> me to stay with python2.2, and I'm having tremendous trouble
>     Gary> building matplotlib for win32. Might someone have a pointer
>     Gary> to a self-installing executable for matplotlib compiled
>     Gary> against python2.2 that is a more recent version than
>     Gary> v0.54.1??
> 
>     Gary> Thanks! And cheers to all the developers of this package.
> 
> Hi Gary - thanks for the kind words (and thanks for the stats module
> as well, which I've been using intermittently for years).
> 
> There is a bug in the _tkagg extension in the python2.2 build which
> has never been tracked down and fixed, which is why we stopped
> releasing it.  You get a missing DLL error when you try and load it.
> I opened _tkagg.pyd in dependency walker, and the DLL is one of the
> Visual Studio .NET dlls - though sometimes dependency walker fives
> false alarms.
> 
> As I write this, it occurs to me the problem that arose in 2.2 may
> have been coincident in my changing build environments (I don't know
> if Todd experienced a similar problem with his numarray builds with
> tkagg and python2.2, but I think he may have ...).

This may be more FUD than fact but... my recollection of this is that
different versions of Tcl/Tk are used between Python-2.2 and
Python-2.3,  I believe 8.3 and 8.4 respectively.  Our process for
creating the windows binaries for maplotlib requires a copy of the
Tcl/Tk headers.  The last time I tried to make a 2.2 version of
matplotlib,  I was able to get matplotlib to compile and link using
different Tcl/Tk headers (8.3), and matplotlib imported successfully, 
but it was unstable.  So,  my impression is that the problem boils down
to getting Python-2.2 specific support for Tcl/Tk into win32_static. 

Regards,
Todd

Re: [Matplotlib-users] Build for python2.2?

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

>>>>> "Todd" == Todd Miller <jm...@st...> writes:

    Todd> This may be more FUD than fact but... my recollection of
    Todd> this is that different versions of Tcl/Tk are used between
    Todd> Python-2.2 and Python-2.3, I believe 8.3 and 8.4
    Todd> respectively.  Our process for creating the windows binaries
    Todd> for maplotlib requires a copy of the Tcl/Tk headers.  The
    Todd> last time I tried to make a 2.2 version of matplotlib, I was
    Todd> able to get matplotlib to compile and link using different
    Todd> Tcl/Tk headers (8.3), and matplotlib imported successfully,
    Todd> but it was unstable.  So, my impression is that the problem
    Todd> boils down to getting Python-2.2 specific support for Tcl/Tk
    Todd> into win32_static.

Not FUD, fact:-)

With this clarification I was able to get 2.2 compiled properly with
tkagg and the other backends.  I uploaded it to the SF site.  This is
the Numeric build.

Todd, I don't want to get into a situation where we are building
Numeric + numarray 0.9 + numarray 1.0 cross python 2.2, python2.3 and
python2.4 (that would be 9 win32 builds!) but we may want to consider
doing python2.2 builds for milestone releases, eg every couple/few
months.  I uploaded a new win32 static to the sf site which includes
the tcl83 and tcl84 headers and updated setupext.py in CVS to use
them.

JDH