[Plplot-general] Freeze for this release is now official + Fortran testing advice

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

This if official notice from your friendly release manager that the
freeze has just been declared for the 5.12.0 release that is scheduled
roughly 10 days from now.  So further changes during this test period
between now and release are going to be limited to non-intrusive bug
fixes (except for documentation updates).  We are currently chasing a
pretty serious wxwidgets device bug (an unexplained long pause where
everything is idle between one example using that device and the next
example during interactive testing) and a pretty serious wxwidgets
binding bug (our current code is making some incorrect assumptions
about when one particular wxwidgets event is going to fire) on Linux
so the actual release date is a bit uncertain.  However, I currently
hope to release PLplot-5.12.0 soon after Christmas, i.e., roughly 10
days from now depending on how that bug fixing goes and depending on
any other bugs that show up during this testing period.

If you are interested in what tests have already been run on what
platforms, I have just finished documenting those (most recently for
Cygwin, MinGW-w64/MSYS2, and Linux) for largely unconstrained
comprehensive tests at
<https://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/wiki/Testing_PLplot/#Testing%20Reports>
and
<https://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/wiki/Testing_PLplot/#Fortran%20Testing%20Reports>.

That latter summary table has been set up specifically for those here
who have an interest in any issues with the completely new Fortran
binding we will be part of this release.

So far those Fortran comprehensive test results are completely
reassuring.  For example, the NAGFOR compiler (notorious for being
picky about standards compliance) generates no errors or warnings for
our new Fortran binding and examples. But I urge those with an
interest in Fortran here to comprehensively test now on their
platforms (and in particular with their favourite Fortran compiler) to
make sure they will be able to use this new Fortran binding for this
release we are about to make.  Please
read the release notes in README.release for the git master branch
version of PLplot (that version will be turning into this release soon) for
all the Fortran caveats which are typically backwards
incompatibilities we have introduced to produce a really clean Fortran
interface.

N.B. an additional important caveat is this new Fortran binding
requires good standards-compliant support for the Fortran
iso_c_binding module upon which our new Fortran binding is based.  So,
for example, gfortran-4.9 and higher qualifies, but 4.9 is the minimum
version of gfortran that we can support because earlier versions do
not provide an iso_c_binding module with all the capabilities that we
need.  And I am sure there are similar stories for really old versions
of other Fortran compilers as well.

Anyhow, to find out about potential Fortran problems before as opposed
to after the release, please test the git master branch version of
PLplot with your favourite Fortran compilers now, using, e.g.,

# Select Fortran compiler you are going to test with
export FC=nagfor

# Run comprehensive test of the Fortran-related (and C for comparison
# purposes) parts of PLplot using that compiler.

time (nice -19 scripts/comprehensive_test.sh --cmake_added_options "-DDEFAULT_NO_DEVICES=ON -DPLD_ps=ON -DDEFAULT_NO_BINDINGS=ON -DENABLE_ocaml=ON -DENABLE_f95=ON" --do_test_interactive no

Send the report tarball (normally stored at
../comprehensive_test_disposable/comprehensive_test.tar.gz) to me.
That will allow me summarize that result at
<https://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/wiki/Testing_PLplot/#Fortran%20Testing%20Reports>.
if that bash script finishes or advise you about how to constrain that
comprehensive test with further options to allow the script to
complete if you run into some issue with it.

Alan
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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); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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