RE: [Plplot-devel] gnuplot to PLplot translation

[Maurice L. <mj...@ga...>]

Alan W. Irwin writes:
 > But regardless of what they do on the licensing or name, it is still
 > interesting to think about implementing an import filter from a gnuplot
 > script to a plplot script to ease the transition for those gnuplot users who
 > want to give plplot a try.  So I would like to hear from anybody here who
 > will admit (;-) to recent gnuplot experience whether they think such an
 > import filter is even possible.

I inherited some simple gnuplot scripts while at dejanews.  Although I did some
enhancement/tweaking, I never got around to redoing them in plplot because the
results were good enough for the job at hand.  

I just got around to downloading the most recent gnuplot -- 3.7.1, which was
released over 2 years ago!  Apparently the project has stagnated quite a bit.
They also lost their domain gnuplot.org, so are now at gnuplot.info.

The distribution does come with a set of demos:

ged$ ls demo
1.dat         bivariat.dem  gnuplot.rot   multimsh.dem  reread.bor    spline.dem    using.dat
2.dat         borders.dem   hemisphr.dat  multiplt.dem  scatter.dem   start.par     using.dem
3.dat         contours.dem  hexa.fnc      param.dem     scatter2.dat  stat.inc      vector.dem
airfoil.dem   controls.dem  hidden.dem    polar.dem     silver.dat    steps.dat     whale.dat
all.dem       density.fnc   klein.dat     poldat.dem    simple.dem    steps.dem     world.cor
animate.dem   discrete.dem  lcdemo.dat    prob.dem      singulr.dem   surface1.dem  world.dat
battery.dat   electron.dem  line.fnc      prob2.dem     sound.par     surface2.dem  world.dem
big_peak.dat  fit.dem       mgr.dem       random.dem    sound2.par    timedat.dat
binary.dem    glass.dat     moli3.dat     reflect.fnc   soundvel.dat  timedat.dem

So at least any attempt at replacement would have something to shoot for.

I'm wondering if this is something that's amenable to a flex/yacc treatment.
If so a flex/yacc expert could probably whip something out in a few days, and
we'd just need to add the underlying support routines for doing the actual
plots.  That way we could support gnuplot "natively" through a new set of
bindings.  Eventually adding plplot-specific enhancements, of course.

Any CS majors out there remember their flex/yacc? :)

I'd be tempted to look into it myself if I weren't so terribly busy -- I spent
a day studying the two a while back and was fascinated.

-- 
Maurice LeBrun    mj...@ga...