Re: [Plplot-general] cmap0 file format

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On 2011-05-20 11:41+0200 Thorsten Behrens wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I'm new to this mailinglist. I've started studying/using Plplot because we
> want to use Plplot within some of our software and I'll be the one to
> implement it.

Hi Thorsten:

Thanks for your interest in PLplot.

>
> I've already installed Plplot (version 5.9.7) together with all necessary
> tools (CMake, in this case). I was then able to build PLplot and compile
> the examples. So far, so good.
>
> Development of our software currently is in Ada (and will stay in Ada as
> long as I'm to develop it). The OS used is Windows (in different flavours,
> currently I'm working on a Windows 7 machine).
>
> When running all examples as well as some other test programs of mine, I
> always get this error on the console that opens when starting a program:
>
> ---snip---
>
> *** PLPLOT WARNING ***
> Unrecognized cmap0 format data line.  Line is #000000
>
> ---snap---
>
> Also, the background color is always white, while all drawing (even if
> explicitly setting a pen color) is done in red.
>
> I read this thread (
> https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=24879301 ) but
> although it seemed to be the same problem, it was not (but may be
> similar). I also read all the online documentation, but found no format
> description of the cmap0_default.pal file.
>
> I'm sure the file is found and read, because when I edit the file
> cmap0_default.pal, I can achieve better (and seemingly correct) results.
> I've added an additional "column" after all the color definitions in the
> cmap0 file. It currently looks like this
>
> ---snap---
> 16
> #000001 0
> #ff0000 0
> #ffff00 0
> #00ff00 0
> #7fffd4 0
> #ffc0cb 0
> #f5deb3 0
> #bebebe 0
> #a52a2a 0
> #0000ff 0
> #8a2be2 0
> #00ffff 0
> #40e0d0 0
> #ff00ff 0
> #fa8072 0
> #ffffff 0
> ---snap---
>
> Et voilà: There is no error/warning output done to the console and the
> background is black, while drawings are done in red (or any other color,
> if explicitly setting apen color).
>
> To me it looks as if the format of the cmap0 file has changed, but this
> change is not (yet) reflected in the cmap0 being delivered.

I agree there should be better documentation of the various cmap0 (and
cmap1) file formats.  (I would be happy to accept such a document from
you if you dive deeper into this.)  However, every style in data/cmap[01]*.pal
should be well supported.  All of those work well on Linux and Mac OS
X, and on the Windows platforms we have tested.  But Windows consists
of large numbers of different platforms, and our developers don't
have access to all of them.  So we must rely on our Windows users
to help us figure out issues.

For example, your Windows experience (and possibly the guy who
contributed to the thread you mentioned above) seems to be an
exception for some reason to the good results we have gotten on other
Windows platforms with the *.pal files.  I would like to get to the
bottom of this issue with your help.

I have forgotten the details, but IIRC the file reading code does get
messed up by the extra CR in the usual Windows line endings which is
why in our svn version of PLplot, all *.pal files _must_ be checked
out with Unix line endings (only the line feed, not CR) for all
platforms including Windows.  (This happens automatically because of
the svn:eol-style LF svn property of those files.) And, of course,
those Unix line endings also get propagated to our distribution
tarball so all should be well if you leave those Unix line endings as
is.

But I am now wondering if you (and the guy who had similar issues in
the previous thread) are using some "smart" tarball unpacker on
Windows that is converting the necessary Unix line endings to the
incorrect (for our cmap[01]*.pal file reading) Windows line endings?

Anyhow, if you have some control of line endings when you unpack the
tarball, then please leave them as Unix and see if that solves the
problem.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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