Re: [Plplot-general] plAlloc2dGrid()

[Andrew R. <and...@us...>]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 11:10:30AM +0100, Arjen Markus wrote:
> Oliver Bandel wrote:
> 
> >Hello,
> >
> >in Example 11 I found graphics, which looks similar to what I
> >wanted to have.
> >
> >I browsed through the code and found
> >plAlloc2dGrid().
> >In tge pdf-version of the documentation I found it mentioned one time,
> >but without any description.
> >In the online html-version I didn't found it.
> >
> >
> >Possibly the examples reason is, to better understand
> >how to use plplot-lib, but when the examples use
> >non-documented functions, they do not really help...
> >
> >Are their additional ressources somewhere, which I can
> >look at ( I do not mean the plplot-lib sources, maybe
> >some more documentation)?!
> >
> >Ciao,
> >   Oliver
> >
> >P.S.: The same problem I found for:
> >  plMinMax2dGrid()
> >   and
> >  plFree2dGrid()
> >  
> >
> Hello Oliver,
> 
> the documentation certainly could do with a bit of work.
> I do not think there is more information about the use of
> these routines/functions beyond what you have already
> found. But as these functions have a simple interface,
> illustrated by the examples, can you understand their
> use or do you need a more detailed description right
> now? (The documentation will have to extended,
> I agree).

Oliver,

The reason (not an excuse!) that these functions are not documented is
that they are not part of our common API. They are only used in the C
examples and are provided as a convenience. Plplot just uses standard C
2-d arrays. You can allocate and free these yourself using malloc / 
free if you like. Of course other languages have their own way of 
allocating arrays and so don't need these functions for the other
bindings. 

Having said that, we should document them. Thanks for pointing this out.

Andrew