Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot Debian package

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

On 2017-07-13 09:12+0200 Ole Streicher wrote:

> Dear Alan and all,
>
> On 12.07.2017 23:28, Alan W. Irwin wrote:
>> On 2017-07-12 11:00+0200 Ole Streicher wrote:
>> I think we are done here with all the current Debian-related topics,
>> but there will likely be more such topics we need to discuss in the
>> near future as you continue the process of updating the Debian
>> packaging for PLplot, and as we move closer to the release of 5.13.0.
>
> I already have a few small questions. First language bindings: Currently
> the following are disabled:
>
> ENABLE_ada:             OFF
> ENABLE_d:               OFF
> ENABLE_octave:          OFF
> ENABLE_pdl:             OFF
> ENABLE_pyqt5:           OFF
>
> Would it be useful to (re-)enable any of them? And what would I need to
> add as dependencies then?

You should _not_ disable the first 3 which are well supported (at least
on Linux).  On Debian Jessie, ENABLE_ada, ENABLE_d, and ENABLE_octave
require the gnat, gdc, and liboctave-dev packages be installed.

I recommend you leave ENABLE_pdl OFF.

We have no Perl/PDL bindings.  So all that happens when ENABLE_pdl is
ON is some Perl/PDL/PLplot examples that some of us wrote many years
ago are tested against a modified version of an externally developed
Perl/PDL/PLplot package where you must follow a rather complex
procedure (see examples/perl/README.perldemos) to set up that test.
So it is a lot of work to help test an external project so I am leaning toward
donating examples/perl to that external project and removing
it and the ENABLE_pdl option completely from PLplot.

With regard to ENABLE_pyqt4 and ENABLE_pyqt5, PLplot is either built
against Qt4 or Qt5, but not both.  Qt4 is currently preferred because it is a
higher quality library than Qt5 (in terms of, e.g., character
alignment bugs).  In the Qt4 case (which you have above), ENABLE_pyqt4
and ENABLE_pyqt5 are set to ON/OFF, while in the latter case they are
set to OFF/ON.  But you will never have both ON at once.


> Then, there is one remaining patch that may be interesting for you
> (attached). I have however no idea about it; it is a remnant from the
> past. Could you give me a hint whether it is needed for me or for you?
>
> Another point is that TCLDIR is currently set to
> /usr/share/plplot5.12.0/tcl, which is not in the package path for
> Tcl/Tk. Is there a way to change this to something like
> /usr/share/tcltk/plplot5.12.0 [1] with a cmake option so that I
> don't need a patch here?
>
> [1] https://pkg-tcltk.alioth.debian.org/tcltk-policy.html/ch-tcltk.html#s-paths
>

I will take a look at these last two issues (likely this weekend).

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); 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).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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