Re: [Plplot-general] Independence of executables from build platform

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Tuesday 18 March 2003 00:58, Michael Eldred wrote:
| Hello,
|
| I am working on a project that uses PLplot for 3D surface
| plotting (more info: http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA) and am
| having the problem that an executable linked with
| libplplotfX.a on one platform won't execute on a different
| platform of the same type due to the dependence on external
| font files.  The error manifests itself as:
|
|
| Cannot open library file: plstnd5.fnt
| lib
| dir="/home/mseldre/export/sierra/Dakota/VendorPackages/plplot/i686-un
|known-linux/lib"
|
| *** PLPLOT ERROR ***
| Unable to open font file
| Program aborted
|
|
| 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.
|
| I have read through the FAQ and other available documentation
| and the only possible solution I can find it to distribute the
| font files along with the executable and have the user set a
| $PLPLOT_LIB environment variable.  This is do-able, but I'm
| writing to see if there may be other possibilities that would
| be cleaner.
|
| I am currently using an older version of PLplot (circa Sept.
| 1998, the included NEWS file says version 4.99j), so the first
| thing I tried was downloading the latest (5.2.0) to see if
| that would help.  From the distribution, it appears that this
| version is still dependent on the same external font files.
|
| So I don't know much about font management, but the desired
| solution would be something where the font support is compiled
| into the executable

- I thing that it would be be possible to put the fonts in the library 
archive, or even build them at run time, as they are generated by 
programs (see the fonts directory -- but the README does not fully 
applies anymore), but that would be a bit strange.
- A stripped library has 240KB, and the font and map files have 
277KBytes.
- the freetype library could be a solution, but then the systems where 
you want plplot to run should have the library. But the xwin driver 
that you are probably using has no support for freetype (yet -- if you 
feel that this solution is the best for you, you could add that feature 
to the driver and contribute the code :-).
- you have to "distribute" the plplot library, so why not distribute the 
fonts also and use PLPLOT_LIB?

| or, alternatively, is reliant on the locally
| supported fonts such that external fonts are not needed.  Is
| something like this available?  I looked a little at the freetype
| configure option, but couldn't find much info on what this is
| about.

try  http://www.freetype.org

Joao
|
| Thanks very much for the help,
| --Mike Eldred