[Plplot-devel] reverting to python-1.5 which solves xw09 problem but which requires associated pyqt GUI change

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

I did a lot of printing out of variables in plmodule2.c, and finally pinned
down the xw09 segfault there to the line:

if ( o && PyArray_Check(o) )

(xw09.py calls plcont which in turn exercises this logic).

If I commented out the call to PyArray_Check, the plot was fine, and there
was no segfault.  I have no idea why this code is not working under
python-2.0, but that is an experimental version under Debian which I presume
is not maintained at all since the python-2 future for Debian is taking a
quite different path. Thus, I don't really trust the "orphaned" Debian
python-2.0 package, and I decided to revert to python-1.5 until python-2
becomes the standard (as opposed to experimental) Debian version of python.
At that point, the xw09.py segfault may come back, but I think it is fairly
likely that it won't.  Anyhow, we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to
it.

I rebuilt sip and pyqt using python-1.5, and similarly rebuilt plplot
for python-1.5.  pythondemos.py now works fine with all examples (i.e.
the PyArray_Check logic above works fine when called by plcont which
in turn is called by xw09.py.)

However, under python-1.5, prova.py quit working with the following error
message:

./prova.py
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "./prova.py", line 20, in ?
    import qplplot
  File "/home/software/plplot_cvs/HEAD/plplot/tmp/qplplot.py", line 39
    self.__attr(*args)
                ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

As a brute-force workaround, I commented out this line in qplplot.py (this
change now in CVS), and the pyqt GUI for plplot now seems to work fine
again.  So, Allesandro, is this code (which appears inside __wrap) not
actually used?  Let me know what you think is the best solution here since
we probably don't want this temporary workaround to become permanent.  Also,
from now on since I am reverting to python-1.5, I would very much appreciate
it if you tested all your coming changes to the pyqt GUI for plplot in a
python-1.5 environment.  I don't plan to support python-1.5 indefinitely,
but it still is the usual environment you find for most Linux distributions
so I think we should support it for now.

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
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