Re: [Plplot-general] Independence of executables from buildplatform

[Michael E. <ms...@sa...>]

Hi Alan,

Thanks very much for the reply.

I'm afraid I wasn't very clear in my description.  I'm not trying 
to distribute a PLplot installation to other platforms, I'm trying 
to distribute an executable (DAKOTA in this case) to other platforms 
which has the PLplot library (libplplotfX.a) linked in as a graphics 
library.  This works fine for all of our various DAKOTA libraries 
(see http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA/licensing/license.html), except 
for this dependence of PLplot on external font files.  We'd prefer 
for our DAKOTA users to be able to download a DAKOTA executable from 
our site and just run it as is, without the need to install 
additional files, have root privelege, etc.

So the question is really: can PLplot be built as a self-contained
library without dependence on external files (and without dependence
on the paths to these files that were present on the build platform)?  
This may not be possible, but thought it would be worth asking.  My
hope was that there would be an option to either embed the fonts or
rely on native platform fonts. 

Also, w.r.t. our plplot configuration, we are currently configuring
using the --prefix=<build_dir>, --disable-tcl, and --without-shlib
options.

Thanks,
--Mike


"Alan W. Irwin" wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Michael Eldred wrote:
> 
> > As it is not practical to build the DAKOTA application from
> > scratch on every platform where we'd like to run, we'd prefer
> > to be able to distribute executables without this type of
> > dependency.
> 
> Since you are talking common executables, you must have the same platform
> everywhere.  I suggest configuring plplot-5.2.0 with a unique prefix (e.g.,
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/plplot), then make; make install.  That last
> step will put everything you need (fonts, drivers, etc.) into
> /usr/local/plplot.  All you have to do after that is make a tarball of
> everything in that tree and copy the tree to all your platforms. This
> solution assumes you have the same system libraries installed in the same
> positions on every platform.
> 
> If you want to get a bit fancier, and your platform is a Linux one, then you
> can build an rpm instead.  This has already been done for you for RH 7.3.
> See resources on http://plplot.sourceforge.net/resources/ for the link. That
> page also says where you can get the latest developmental tarball and Debian
> packages as well.
>
> BTW, use ./configure --help to see what the options are.  For example, by
> default you will build both shared and static libraries.  If you don't want
> the shared libraries just specify --disable-shared.
> 
> One notorious configuration bug to watch out for in plplot-5.2.0 ---  the
> combination of static drivers and double precision does not work.  This
> configuration bug has been fixed in the cvs version and the developmental
> tarball that is derived from the cvs version.
> 
> Also, stay tuned here for PLplot news.  In April we plan to make our next
> release (with configuration superbly debugged, refined, and polished mostly
> by Rafael Laboissiere's hard work), and you will first hear all the
> details right here.
> 
> Alan

Thanks,
--Mike
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Michael S. Eldred, Ph.D.
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, Mail Stop 0847
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0847
(505)844-6479, FAX:(505)844-9297
ms...@sa...
http://endo.sandia.gov/~mseldre/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^