[Plplot-general] Request for testing of the experimental CMake build system

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

To PLplot testers everywhere:

As you may be aware the KDE developers have recently switched from an
autotools-based build system to the CMake build system.  The stated
advantages of CMake are substantially faster build results, easier build
system maintenance, and full support for builds on bare windows platforms as
well as Unix, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Inspired by this story, Andrew Ross and I have been implementing a CMake
build system for PLplot.  Although still experimental, we have good reports
for Linux, Mac OS X, and MinGW on windows.  Buoyed by this success, I would
like to encourage widespread testing of the current PLplot cvs version of
our CMake build system.

The CMake build system for PLplot does have some current limitations. We are
still missing the Tcl/Tk interface and a documentation build system. We are
also missing the wxwidgets device, the Tk-related devices, and specialized
windows and Mac OS X devices as well as some more obscure devices.

Despite these current limitations, the results of the PLplot CMake build
have a lot of capability which is already suitable for many users. For
example, on Linux (Debian stable and Ubuntu dapper) we have the C, C++, f77,
f95, java, and python interfaces and examples working as well as png, jpeg,
gif, gcw, ps, psttf, and xwin device drivers.  For the postscript results
produced by ./plplot-test.sh in the installed examples directory, we are
getting the same results (aside from occasional floating-point rounding
errors) as previous results with the autotools build system.  This is most
encouraging.

Here is how to get involved if you would like to help us out with some test
results, learn more about CMake, and/or if you are simply curious about the
speed and convenience of this experimental build system for PLplot.

(1) Download, build and install cmake-2.4.2 (that version is essential and
available from http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Download.html).

(2) Initialize the PLplot build as follows:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/your_install_prefix \
-DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE=ON ../plplot_cmake >& cmake.out

plplot_cmake must be a clean PLplot source tree checked out from CVS HEAD
following the directions at http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=2915

The above cmake command is initially run from an empty build tree.  After
running it you will probably also want to run

ccmake ../plplot_cmake

which is a command-line-interface that makes it convenient to set PLplot
options.

The above cmake command completely replaces the cf/bootstrap.sh and
./configure commands that you are used to (and is much faster than those
commands as well which is one of our motivations for implementing this new
CMake build system for PLplot).

(3) From the same separate build directory that was populated by Makefiles
with the above cmake command, finish the PLplot build and install following
my usual recommended pattern for initial testing of new versions of PLplot
software, i.e.,

make >& make.out
make install >& make_install.out
cd /tmp
cp -a /your_install_prefix/share/plplot-5.6.1/examples .
cd examples
make >& make_examples.out
./plplot-test.sh >& plplot-test.out

The above testing pattern should work on any Unix (including Cygwin and
MinGW on windows).  Currently, we have no experience with the Plplot CMake
build system on bare windows (i.e., windows without Cygwin or MinGW).  For
that case, you will have to consult the CMake documentation (collected
below) to see how to mimic the above test pattern, but we will be most
interested in the results.

(4) If there are problems in any of the above steps, please collect into a
compressed tarball all the important CakeCache.txt,
CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log, and CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log files produced by
the cmake command as well as _all_ of the above *.out files up to and
including the step where the problem occurred.  You can send that compressed
tarball to me or the plplot_devel list as an attachment and I will take
it from there.

(5) Success stories are welcome as well!

(6) If you want to delve more deeply into CMake (especially for the bare
windows case), I have collected some useful references in
cmake/README.cmake_doc in the CVS version of PLplot.

Good luck with your testing of the experimental build system!

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 Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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