[Plplot-devel] AT commits to make dynamic drivers work

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

I have just committed some changes to make dynamic drivers work on the
AT branch.  (Note, I have disabled static drivers for now to keep life
simple.)

I encourage you to try out this branch on Linux.

Here is the cookbook.

Please follow it as closely as possible since I don't have some corner cases
taken care of yet.

I used autoconf-2.53, automake-1.5, and libtool-1.4.2.  Probably you should
stick with these versions or later.

You will need the freetype library version 6 (development version) installed.

cvs checkout -r AT -d AT plplot
cd AT
./bootstrap.sh >& bootstrap.out
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/plplot_at --with-double \
--enable-dyndrivers > & ! configure.out
make >& make.out &
make >& make_install.out

Note I have used a special install location prefix so I don't mess up
my usual plplot install area.  Also, I used --with-double.  If you drop
this option it should work, but I haven't tested it.
--enable-dyndrivers is mandatory (for now).

cd examples/c
libtool gcc -g x08c.c -L/usr/local/plplot_at/lib -lplplotd -o x08c -rpath
/usr/local/plplot_at/lib -I../../include

Note, I don't have the installed headers done quite correctly yet so that
is the reason why I am using -I../../include

./x08c -dev xwin
./x08c -dev psc -o temp.ps

Both these commands work like a charm using the xwin and psc dynamic
devices.

It has been a lot easier than I thought to get to the stage where dynamic
devices work.  Rafael has told us all along that autotools are easy to
use, and he is absolutely correct.

There are some obvious rough spots in the above.  None of the front ends
work except for C.  static drivers have been disabled for now (just like for
CVS HEAD).  Some options have been hard coded (for example, there is an
assumption that libfreetype version 6 has been installed).  I have only
implemented the xwin and psc devices for now.  The examples are not installed,
and they have to be compiled by hand as in the above.

But I view these rough spots as second priorities for now.  My highest
priority is to get everything to work with the compile farm solaris machine

uname -a
SunOS usf-cf-sparc-solaris-1 5.8 Generic_108528-17 sun4u sparcSUNW,Ultra-60

I suspect this is going to take some additional effort since there are
usually cross-platform issues with dlopened plug-ins (our dynamic devices)
according to the AT book.  But my short-term goal this weekend is to get the
AT branch working on solaris as well or better than it does now on Linux.  I
believe that will be a major breakthrough since AFAIK, dynamic drivers have
never worked before on any platform other than Linux.

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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