plplot-devel — Technical discussion about PLplot development

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot Docbook configuration

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Friday 14 March 2003 17:03, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| * Jo=E3o Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 16:33]:
=2E..
| Nothing.  I will change the DTD requierement to 4.2, as this is
| anyway the most appropriate thing to do.

Now the detection phase runs OK, and some docs are built, but I still=20
get an error:

=2E..
openjade -c /etc/sgml/catalog -c /usr/share/sgml/CATALOG.db42xml -d=20
plplotdoc-html.dsl -t sgml \
  /usr/share/sgml/openjade/xml.dcl plplotdoc.xml
perl ../bin/info-clean.pl plplotdoc.xml > plplotdoc.xml-info
ln -fs inline-info.ent inline.ent
if perl -I/home/jcard/plplot/doc/docbook/perl=20
/home/jcard/plplot/doc/docbook/perl/docbook2texixml plplotdoc.xml-info=20
> plplotdoc.txml-tmp ; then \
  mv plplotdoc.txml-tmp plplotdoc.txml ; \
else \
  false ; \
fi

undefined entity at line 230, column 44, byte 13897 at=20
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/XML/Parser.pm=20
line 185
make[4]: *** [plplotdoc.txml] Error 1

Re: [Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-general] libqhull

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

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

> Long answer: This is a bad side-effect of using plplot_libtool, instead of a
> full-fledged solution with the right libraries put in the Makefile.

NO.  You keep forgetting that libtool is a configured script that is
adjusted exactly (and only) for the build system.  See below.

> The
> problem comes from here:
>
>     $ grep libqhull /usr/lib/libplplotd.la
>     dependency_libs='/usr/lib/libfreetype.la -lz /usr/lib/libcsa.la
>     /usr/lib/libnn.la /usr/lib/libqhull.la -lm -ldl'
>
> I may try to find a way to force the use of "-lqhull" instead of
> "/usr/lib/libqhull.la" in that file, because libqhull is not provided by the
> PLplot pakcage.  Same thing for -lfreetype.  I dunno if this is possible
> with libtool, but I will look at it.

Do NOT do this.  I am surprised I have to go into libtool advocacy mode here
with you on this.  Our joint experience is it usually does exactly the right
thing, and that proves to be the case this time as well.  It simply is
configured to do the right thing on the build system.  In my case (Debian
woody) I have an older qhull which was not built with libtool so there is no
libqhull.la. But libtool is configured appropriately for that situation on
my system.

grep qhull /usr/local/plplot_at/lib/libplplotd.la
dependency_libs=' /usr/lib/libfreetype.la /usr/local/plplot_at/lib/libcsa.la
/usr/local/plplot_at/lib/libnn.la -lqhull -lm -ldl'

Note in this case -lqhull is used.  So the linking will be fine for all
cases.  Remember, libtool (and therefore the local copy of that script,
plplot-libtool) is configured just for the build system so you cannot
generalize the result on one system to what will happen on others.

>
> Otherwise, I will probably add a dependency on libqhull-dev and
> libfreetype6-dev to libplplot-dev.

This is the correct approach.  If the user wants to build the examples he will
obviously need libplplot-dev which will bring in the rest of the required
dev packages.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-devel] libqhull

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Friday 14 March 2003 16:08, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| * Jo=E3o Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 15:36]:
| > But won't this happens in other non-debian systems that have
| > qhull/freetype installed as archive and not shared libraries? And
| > even if a shared library exists but it was not built with libtool?
|
| Oh, I guess you are confused here.  *.la files are _not_ static
| libraries. Neither are they shared libs.  Actually, they are ...
| shell scripts (!!!)

Yes, I have look at it.

=2E..

| At any rate, this will not be a real problem, since if the user does
| not have libqhull.la installed in her system, then "-lqhull" gets
| inserted into libplplot{d}.la. To be convinced, just do it by
| yourself:

I believe you!
I'm (was?) concerned with the qhull issue as I tested it only in linux,=20
and I don't know what will happen in other systems. You are the one=20
that religiously :) believe in libtool, not me :)

But I still have doubts with nn/csa, because of NaN issues.
I'm thinking in posting a RFC in the general list, asking for people=20
with non linux system to test a test program, that I attach.

Under OSF/alpha, it must be compiled as

   gcc -mieee nantest.c -o nantest -lm

or, using the native compiler,

  cc -ieee nantest.c -o nantest -lm

Under linux, a plain gcc ... -lm will do the work, although adding the=20
=2Dmieee-fp flag is the recomended approach.

The problem is how will solaris, aix, dos, etc behave. Do any of you=20
have classical unix systems where you can try it, either with gcc or=20
the native C compiler?

This is the program output:

[jcard@feup] ./nantest=20
GNUC, LITTLE_ENDIAN
x=3Dnan
x+1=3Dnan, z=3Dnan
NaN detected

Thanks,
Joao

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot Docbook configuration

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* João Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 16:33]:

> If I replace V4.1 with V4.2 in doc/docbook/docbook.m4, and I use  
> 
> --with-sgml-catalogs=/usr/share/sgml/CATALOG.db42xml
> 
> then the DTD is found.
> 
> If I use V4.1 in doc/docbook/docbook.m4 and use 
> 
> --with-sgml-catalogs=/usr/share/sgml/CATALOG.db41xml
> 
> Then the DTD is not found, as CATALOG.db41xml defines the V4.1.2 DTD
> 
> What must I/you do?

Nothing.  I will change the DTD requierement to 4.2, as this is anyway the
most appropriate thing to do.

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-general] libqhull

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* Christophe TROESTLER <deb...@ti...> [2003-03-14 17:21]:

> On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Rafael Laboissiere <lab...@ps...> wrote:
> > Last comment: The next time you find a problem in a Debian package
> > (specially if it is only related to the Debian packages themselves),
> > please send a bug report to the Debian BTS (Bug Tracking System)
> 
> Will do -- sorry for cluttering the list.

No problem.  Next time, if you are not sure where the problem comes from
(upstream or Debian packaging), send a Cc: to plplot-devel.

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot Docbook configuration

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Friday 14 March 2003 15:40, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| Hi again,
|
| I am glad to learn that you are pretty close to get your system ready
| for building the Docbook documentation.
|
| * Jo=E3o Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 15:15]:
| > What do I need to find the "DocBook DTD"? What is the contents of
| > the top 5 lines of the file that defines that DTD?
|
| The required DTD is specified in file doc/docbook/docbook.m4:
|
|     DOCBOOK_DTD_PUBID=3D"-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1//EN"
|
| [ This reminds me that we should enforce version 4.2 instead of 4.1.

If I replace V4.1 with V4.2 in doc/docbook/docbook.m4, and I use =20

=2D-with-sgml-catalogs=3D/usr/share/sgml/CATALOG.db42xml

then the DTD is found.

If I use V4.1 in doc/docbook/docbook.m4 and use=20

=2D-with-sgml-catalogs=3D/usr/share/sgml/CATALOG.db41xml

Then the DTD is not found, as CATALOG.db41xml defines the V4.1.2 DTD

What must I/you do?

Joao

| ]
|
| This definition, in my Debian system, is provided by the docbook-xml
| package.  To find the relevant file:
|
|     $ dpkg -L docbook-xml \
|
|       | xargs fgrep -l -- "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1//EN"
|       | 2>/dev/null
|
|     /usr/share/sgml/docbook/dtd/xml/4.1.2/docbook.cat
|
| Try to locate this file in your system or to install the appropriate
| rpm package.

Re: [Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-general] libqhull

[Christophe T. <deb...@ti...>]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Rafael Laboissiere <lab...@ps...> wrote:
> 
> Short answer:  apt-get install libqhull-dev (Oh, I love Debian! :-). 
                                                           `-> me too :-)
Thanks for your quick answer.
 
> Otherwise, I will probably add a dependency on libqhull-dev and
> libfreetype6-dev to libplplot-dev.

Yes; that's why I was puzzled since I got libplplot-dev installed.

> Last comment: The next time you find a problem in a Debian package
> (specially if it is only related to the Debian packages themselves),
> please send a bug report to the Debian BTS (Bug Tracking System)

Will do -- sorry for cluttering the list.

ChriS

Re: [Plplot-devel] libqhull

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* João Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 15:36]:

> But won't this happens in other non-debian systems that have 
> qhull/freetype installed as archive and not shared libraries? And even if a
> shared library exists but it was not built with libtool?

Oh, I guess you are confused here.  *.la files are _not_ static libraries.
Neither are they shared libs.  Actually, they are ... shell scripts (!!!)

It only makes sense to use *.la files as arguments of libtool (or, in our
case, plplot_libtool).  I dislike the idea of using that script
(plplot_libtool) to compile the examples, but Alan seems to have strong
arguments in favor of it, mainly related to portability.

> The configure test that checks for the presence of qhull just checks 
> that a program can be compiled with -lqhull, it does not check if it is 
> a shared/archive library. If latter in the configure process  -lqhull 
> is replaced with <absolute_path>/libqhull.la that will break the make.

No, configure never replaces -lqhull by <absolute_path>/libqhull.la.  This
is done internally by libtool when generating the libplplot{d}.la file (look
at the line starting with "dependency_libs=").  See below.

> Does the current plplot configure scheme address this issue? I have only 
> tested with shared libs.

This is not a matter of shared vs. static libraries, as I pointed out above.

At any rate, this will not be a real problem, since if the user does not
have libqhull.la installed in her system, then "-lqhull" gets inserted into
libplplot{d}.la. To be convinced, just do it by yourself:

    $ cd /usr/lib
    $ mv libqhull.la libqhull.la-save
    $ cd ~/plplot-build/src
    $ rm libplplotd.la
    $ make > /dev/null    
    $ grep dependency_libs libplplotd.la
    dependency_libs='/usr/lib/libfreetype.la -lz 
    /home/rafael/plplot-build/lib/csa/libcsa.la
    /home/rafael/devel/plplot-build/lib/nn/libnn.la -lqhull -lm -ldl'
                                                    ^^^^^^^
    $ cd /usr/lib
    $ mv libqhull.la-save libqhull.la
    $ cd ~/plplot-build/src
    $ rm libplplotd.la
    $ make > /dev/null    
    $ grep dependency_libs libplplotd.la
    dependency_libs='/usr/lib/libfreetype.la -lz 
    /home/rafael/plplot-build/lib/csa/libcsa.la
    /home/rafael/devel/plplot-build/lib/nn/libnn.la
    /usr/lib/libqhull.la -lm -ldl'
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot Docbook configuration

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

Hi again,

I am glad to learn that you are pretty close to get your system ready for
building the Docbook documentation.

* João Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-14 15:15]:

> What do I need to find the "DocBook DTD"? What is the contents of the 
> top 5 lines of the file that defines that DTD?

The required DTD is specified in file doc/docbook/docbook.m4:

    DOCBOOK_DTD_PUBID="-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1//EN"

[ This reminds me that we should enforce version 4.2 instead of 4.1. ]

This definition, in my Debian system, is provided by the docbook-xml
package.  To find the relevant file:

    $ dpkg -L docbook-xml \
      | xargs fgrep -l -- "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1//EN" 2>/dev/null
    /usr/share/sgml/docbook/dtd/xml/4.1.2/docbook.cat

Try to locate this file in your system or to install the appropriate rpm
package.

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] libqhull

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Friday 14 March 2003 14:50, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| * Christophe TROESTLER <deb...@ti...> [2003-03-14 14:49]:
| > When I try to compile the "c" examples with "make" I get
| >
| > plplot_libtool --mode=link gcc x01c.c -I/usr/include/plplot
| > -L/usr/lib -lplplotd -o x01c plplot_libtool: link: cannot find the
| > library `/usr/lib/libqhull.la' make: *** [x01c] Error 1
| >
| > What is the matter?  I got
| >
| > ii  libplplot-dev 5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
| > ii  libplplot5    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1   Scientific plotting
| > library ii  plplot-doc    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
| > ii  plplot-gd     5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
| > ii  plplot-tcl    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
| > ii  plplot-xwin   5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
| > ii  libqhull4     2002.1-3       Calculate convex hulls and related
| > structure
| >
| > installed, but they do not contain anything like libqhull.la !
| >                                                           ^^
|
| Short answer:  apt-get install libqhull-dev (Oh, I love Debian! :-).
|
| Long answer: This is a bad side-effect of using plplot_libtool,
| instead of a full-fledged solution with the right libraries put in
| the Makefile. The problem comes from here:
|
|     $ grep libqhull /usr/lib/libplplotd.la
|     dependency_libs='/usr/lib/libfreetype.la -lz /usr/lib/libcsa.la
|     /usr/lib/libnn.la /usr/lib/libqhull.la -lm -ldl'
|
| I may try to find a way to force the use of "-lqhull" instead of
| "/usr/lib/libqhull.la" in that file, because libqhull is not provided
| by the PLplot pakcage.  Same thing for -lfreetype.  I dunno if this
| is possible with libtool, but I will look at it.

But won't this happens in other non-debian systems that have 
qhull/freetype installed as archive and not shared libraries?
And  even if a shared library exists but it was not built with libtool?

The configure test that checks for the presence of qhull just checks 
that a program can be compiled with -lqhull, it does not check if it is 
a shared/archive library. If latter in the configure process  -lqhull 
is replaced with <absolute_path>/libqhull.la that will break the make.

Does the current plplot configure scheme address this issue? I have only 
tested with shared libs.

Joao

PS-One of the reasons why I want to be able to build the plplot docbook 
is to be able to "make dist" in order to test this issue in other 
systems.

|
| Otherwise, I will probably add a dependency on libqhull-dev and
| libfreetype6-dev to libplplot-dev. For now, since you are doing
| compilation (i.e., development) it is appropriate to install the
| libqhull-dev package, as suggested in the short answer above. 
| Install also libfreetype6-dev, just in case.
|
| Last comment: The next time you find a problem in a Debian package
| (specially if it is only related to the Debian packages themselves),
| please send a bug report to the Debian BTS (Bug Tracking System). 
| You will always be able to Cc: to plplot-devel, if you wish.  If you
| do not know what I am talking about:
|
|     apt-get install reportbug

[Plplot-devel] PLplot Docbook configuration

[<jc...@fe...>]

Hi,

What do I need to find the "DocBook DTD"? What is the contents of the 
top 5 lines of the file that defines that DTD?

Thanks,
Joao

--------------On my suse-8.1: -------------------------

--enable-docbook \
--with-sgml-catalogs=/etc/sgml/catalog \
--with-xml-declaration=/usr/share/sgml/openjade/xml.dcl

checking XML::DOM... yes
checking XML::Parser... yes
checking for openjade... found
checking for jadetex... found
checking for pdfjadetex... found
checking for dvips... found
checking for onsgmls... found
checking for makeinfo... found
checking DSSSL Style Sheet DTD... found
checking DocBook HTML Stylesheet... found
checking DocBook Print Stylesheet... found
checking DocBook DTD... no <------------------------
checking XML::Parser::PerlSAX... yes
checking XML::Writer... yes

 --------------- On a regular RH-8.0: ------------

--enable-docbook \
--with-sgml-catalogs=/etc/sgml/catalog \
--with-xml-declaration=/usr/share/sgml/xml.dcl

checking XML::DOM... yes
checking XML::Parser... yes
checking for openjade... found
checking for jadetex... found
checking for pdfjadetex... found
checking for dvips... found
checking for onsgmls... found
checking for makeinfo... found
checking DSSSL Style Sheet DTD... found
checking DocBook HTML Stylesheet... found
checking DocBook Print Stylesheet... found
checking DocBook DTD... no <-------------------
checking XML::Parser::PerlSAX... yes
checking XML::Writer... no <----------------------

[Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-general] libqhull

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* Christophe TROESTLER <deb...@ti...> [2003-03-14 14:49]:

> When I try to compile the "c" examples with "make" I get
> 
> plplot_libtool --mode=link gcc x01c.c -I/usr/include/plplot -L/usr/lib -lplplotd -o x01c
> plplot_libtool: link: cannot find the library `/usr/lib/libqhull.la'
> make: *** [x01c] Error 1
> 
> What is the matter?  I got
> 
> ii  libplplot-dev 5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
> ii  libplplot5    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1   Scientific plotting library
> ii  plplot-doc    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
> ii  plplot-gd     5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
> ii  plplot-tcl    5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
> ii  plplot-xwin   5.2.0.cvs.20030307-1
> ii  libqhull4     2002.1-3       Calculate convex hulls and related structure
> 
> installed, but they do not contain anything like libqhull.la !
>                                                           ^^

Short answer:  apt-get install libqhull-dev (Oh, I love Debian! :-). 

Long answer: This is a bad side-effect of using plplot_libtool, instead of a
full-fledged solution with the right libraries put in the Makefile. The
problem comes from here:

    $ grep libqhull /usr/lib/libplplotd.la 
    dependency_libs='/usr/lib/libfreetype.la -lz /usr/lib/libcsa.la
    /usr/lib/libnn.la /usr/lib/libqhull.la -lm -ldl'

I may try to find a way to force the use of "-lqhull" instead of
"/usr/lib/libqhull.la" in that file, because libqhull is not provided by the
PLplot pakcage.  Same thing for -lfreetype.  I dunno if this is possible
with libtool, but I will look at it.

Otherwise, I will probably add a dependency on libqhull-dev and
libfreetype6-dev to libplplot-dev. For now, since you are doing compilation
(i.e., development) it is appropriate to install the libqhull-dev package,
as suggested in the short answer above.  Install also libfreetype6-dev, just
in case.

Last comment: The next time you find a problem in a Debian package
(specially if it is only related to the Debian packages themselves), please
send a bug report to the Debian BTS (Bug Tracking System).  You will always
be able to Cc: to plplot-devel, if you wish.  If you do not know what I am
talking about:

    apt-get install reportbug

-- 
Rafael

[Plplot-devel] Re: [Plplot-cvs] CVS update notice (plplot/bindings/octave)

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

[ Moving this discussion to plplot-devel.  Joao: please do not reply
  messages to plplot-cvs, since this mailing list is not for discussion.  It
  is not even archived at SF.  Thanks. ]

* Joao Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-13 23:27]:

> On Thursday 13 March 2003 19:54, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
> > Update of /cvsroot/plplot/plplot/bindings/octave
> > In directory sc8-pr-cvs1:/tmp/cvs-serv24857/bindings/octave
> >
> > Modified Files:
> > 	Makefile.am
> > Log Message:
> >
> > Implemented the check of programs and Perl modules necessary to build the
> > files in bindings/octave/plplot_octave_txt/.  The extension of the present
> > change is quite large, because the previous situations was quite
> > constraining.  Indeed, the checks for Perl modules were buried in
> > bindings/octave/configure.ac, which was included in configure.ac
> > conditionally on enable_docbook.
> >
> > To make the idea work, I had to split bindings/octave/configure.ac
> 
> you mean doc/docbook/configure.ac, right? This can be misleading.

Yes.

> > into two
> > parts: the first one consisted of macro definitons, configure options
> > declarations and things alike, that can (and sometimes must) run
> > inconditionally.  This material has been moved into a new file called
> > bindings/octave/docbook.m4
> 
> the same?

Yes.

> > (BTW, having two configure.ac in the source tree
> > was an aberration).
> >
> > The second part consisted of the actual checks (for programs, DTDs, and
> > Perl modules), which should be run conditioanlly.  This material has been
> > inserted into configure.ac.
> >
> > The specific tests for the Octave bindings regard the program Perl, and the
> > Perl modules XML::DOM and XML::Parser, which are used by api2text.pl to
> > build the text documentation files.  If the tests go okay, api2text.pl is
> > called in bindings/octave/Makefile.am, if needed.  Otherwise, thanks to the
> > new AM_CONDITIONAL has_xml_pm, if recompilation of the *.txt files is
> > needed, then the make and shows the error message:
> 
> There is no need to stop the make. The only consequence is that plplot_octave 
> will not have the original PLplot API help text; instead, a one line 
> description is searched in plplot.doc, and if even one is not found a "no 
> help available" message is used.

Okay, I will change that.

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot version string for the current CVS version

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...> [2003-03-12 08:57]:

> Since this option won't affect most developers the only question remaining
> for discussion here is whether there is any objection to
> old.release.number.cvs (e.g., 5.2.0.cvs) as the static version number
> between releases?

Fine with me.

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] PLplot version string for the current CVS version

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

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> Rafael and I have been discussing this topic recently since it makes no
> sense to call our documentation version 5.2.0 when it is clearly done after
> that release.  Same goes for any tarball we create now leading up to our
> next release.  It makes no sense to call it 5.2.0, but it also makes no
> sense to call it say 5.2.1.pre since we are not actually sure of that number
> until actual release time when the version decision will be made.  We both
> agree that old version suffixed with cvs and date (e.g., 5.2.0.cvs.20030303)
> would work.

Actually, Rafael does not agree with this idea.  He has just reminded me
privately that if the version is changed on a daily basis then that means
recompiling *everything* every time you run bootstrap.sh which of course
would be unacceptable.  So I think the best compromise is to change our
current configure.ac so the version string is 5.2.0.cvs, and add an option
(mostly to be used for special circumstances such as making a pre-release
tarball to be publically made available to testers or building pre-release
documentation for our website) to bootstrap.sh to add the date to that
static version string.  Since this option won't affect most developers the
only question remaining for discussion here is whether there is any
objection to old.release.number.cvs (e.g., 5.2.0.cvs) as the static version
number between releases?

Alan

__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

[Plplot-devel] PLplot version string for the current CVS version

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

Rafael and I have been discussing this topic recently since it makes no
sense to call our documentation version 5.2.0 when it is clearly done after
that release.  Same goes for any tarball we create now leading up to our
next release.  It makes no sense to call it 5.2.0, but it also makes no
sense to call it say 5.2.1.pre since we are not actually sure of that number
until actual release time when the version decision will be made.  We both
agree that old version suffixed with cvs and date (e.g., 5.2.0.cvs.20030303)
would work.

We are considering implementing this so that the date on the version
automatically gets changed to the current date whenever you run bootstrap.sh
(with an option to turn this off and just use the string in configure.ac
with no cvs.date for new releases).  Would that automatic change to version
(unless you specifically opt out) be acceptable to everyone, or are there
some practical side effects to that potentially daily version change which
would cause problems for our cvs developers?  If you do favour a largely
static version string between releases, please come up with a decent version
string that is higher in the collating sequence than the previous version,
is different from the previous version, but which doesn't pre-judge what the
next version will be. (5.2.0.development or 5.2.0.cvs?). But I would prefer
the date in the version simply because our cvs is changing all the time, and
clearly the CVS version on the 3rd and today are different, and therefore it
just makes sense to call them something different (e.g., 5.2.0.cvs.20030303
and 5.2.0.cvs.20030312).

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-devel] New documentation at our SF website

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

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> Just for the record I have 4.05, but that may not be relevant since I had no
> trouble with the previous version when I tested acroread search.  Have you
> downloaded the *.pdf file I produced, and tried the experiment (repeated
> searches for plplot)?  The fifth try here using the GUI from
>
> acroread plplot-5.2.0.pdf
>
> produces the message "Attempt to release an unlocked object".  For other
> searches, this error message occurs immediately.  I have never encountered
> this error before.  It may have something to do with the remaining openjade
> error concerning flow objects (whatever they are) that I brought to your
> attention.

With my updated openjade and sgml packages, this openjade error has now gone
away.  Furthermore, there are no obvious problems with the acroread search
any more. So enjoy the nice improved plplot-5.2.0.pdf that I have just
uploaded to our website!

That still leaves the cross-reference issue I mentioned for the info
backend.  Rafael has found this problem in info output only occurs for
cross-references at the end of a sentence, but hasn't found a fix yet.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-devel] Documentation configure speed problem resolved.

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...> [2003-03-11 09:14]:

> Rafael and I finally found the cause of this problem.  Upgrading the sgml
> tools installed on my machine increased my docbook configuration speed by
> literally a factor of 30!

I am relieved.  Waiting for your next 30 GHz workstation would take way too
long... :-)

-- 
Rafael

[Plplot-devel] Documentation configure speed problem resolved.

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

On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> Currently, the reason why most developers would want to avoid
> --enable-docbook (even if it is straightforward to get the prerequisite
> packages installed) is it currently takes something like 6 minutes on my
> computer just to configure --enable-docbook.  Rafael, do you know why it is
> so slow?  That's a ridiculous amount of computer time just to configure
> something.  There has got to be a better way.

Rafael and I finally found the cause of this problem.  Upgrading the sgml
tools installed on my machine increased my docbook configuration speed by
literally a factor of 30! So once the rest of you are starting to try
documentation builds, be careful of this tool version issue.  I will
eventually document in README.developers the minimum recommended versions of
everything.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-devel] non-binary .map,.fnt files, again!

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* Vince Darley <vi...@sa...> [2003-03-11 01:02]:

> A year or two ago I reported a problem with the .map and .fnt files (in
> 'lib' at that time).  They are not marked a 'binary' in cvs, and
> consequently are corrupted when checked out on any non-unix platform.  Now
> that they have been moved to 'data' someone has made the same mistake
> again.
> 
> Can someone on unix fix this problem please?

Fixed in CVS.  Could you please tell me if it works for you?

-- 
Rafael

[Plplot-devel] non-binary .map,.fnt files, again!

[Vince D. <vi...@sa...>]

A year or two ago I reported a problem with the .map and .fnt files (in
'lib' at that time).  They are not marked a 'binary' in cvs, and
consequently are corrupted when checked out on any non-unix platform.  Now
that they have been moved to 'data' someone has made the same mistake
again.

Can someone on unix fix this problem please?

-- Vince

<http://www.santafe.edu/~vince>

Re: [Plplot-devel] Problem with SGML entity not defined

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* João Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-03-10 20:11]:

> | Contrary to Joao, I dislike visual editors (like LyX and the Mozilla
> | Composer).  When I edit LaTeX and HTML/SGML/XML, I use AUC-TeX and
> | PSGML-mode, respectively, under XEmacs.  They are not WYSIWYG tools
> | (fortunately!), but they are incredible helpers.  With a normal
> | editor, I would find it almost impossible to do productive work with
> | such "verbose technologies".
> 
> aahhh, you agree! But syntax highlighting is not enough for me. I also 
> use Xemacs, but I don't use emacs/w3 for web browsing -- do you?

No, but compare things that are comparable.  IMHO, w3 is a rather poor piece
of software, because the overload of lisp.  But have you tried links (_not_
lynx)?

To come back to the subject, PSGML mode in (X)Emacs is not only about syntax
highlighting.  It does DTD parsing, can check syntax and insert closing
targets, has a nice menu that can propose tags to insert (based on the
parsed DTD) and many things more.  I cannot imagine how to edit XML files
without this emacs mode. 

> As a mater of fact I'm surprised you don't use Emacs -nw. I'm fully 
> joking :)

I am right now using jed to compose this email (mutt is my MUA).  I do use
console based tools from time to time :-)

-- 
Rafael

Re: [Plplot-devel] Problem with SGML entity not defined

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Sunday 09 March 2003 14:19, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| Hi,
|
| I am still without access to my email and production workstation, but
| I am following the discussion in the mailing list through the web. 
| Thanks for your efforts, Alan, regarding the Perl modules.  Joao: I
| was half-joking about your "pestering" after the Perl modules and
| Docbook.

You was right! No joking :) (how do you read this?)

|  Actually, I am pleased and surprised that even if you
| dislike the DocBook markup, you are still contributing with the
| documentation and willing to get things working.

Well, I don't have a choice, do I? You are not changing the docs back to 
latex, nor using MS-word, right? I'm joking here?

| Contrary to Joao, I dislike visual editors (like LyX and the Mozilla
| Composer).  When I edit LaTeX and HTML/SGML/XML, I use AUC-TeX and
| PSGML-mode, respectively, under XEmacs.  They are not WYSIWYG tools
| (fortunately!), but they are incredible helpers.  With a normal
| editor, I would find it almost impossible to do productive work with
| such "verbose technologies".

aahhh, you agree! But syntax highlighting is not enough for me. I also 
use Xemacs, but I don't use emacs/w3 for web browsing -- do you?
As a mater of fact I'm surprised you don't use Emacs -nw. I'm fully 
joking :)

I have a fellow colleague who does porogramming in Postscript! In a text 
editor, of course. He says that it's easier for him to "see" a 
postscript picture included in Latex that looking at it under lyx!

...

| Some time ago I made a private joke to Alan saying that it would be
| easier to convert all the developers to Debian instead of trying to
| fix those crappy rpm-based systems. ;-)
|
| Of course, I was only half-joking...

Was you? what half of the joke?

Joao ::::)))))

Re: [Plplot-devel] Will disappear until next Thursday (hmmm, doesn't look like)

[<jc...@fe...>]

On Monday 10 March 2003 17:19, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
| * Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...> [2003-03-09 16:32]:
| > You are probably right; we need to learn more about this aspect,
| > and my educated guesses may be leading us astray. The critical
| > question then is how does the perl parser know the location of
| > those xml/sgml files you mentioned where the required entities are
| > defined?
|
| I dug a little bit deeper and found the following: the Perl module
| XML::DOM::Parser extends the module XML::Parser, which uses the expat
| library (package libexpat1 in Debian).  The error that Joao gets:
|
|     undefined entity at line 2915, column 62, byte 85921 at
|    
| /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i586-linux-thread-multi/XML/Parser.pm
| line 185
|
| comes for the expat library (I am 100% sure about this).  What is
| intriguing is that the expat library have different behaviors in
| Joao's system than in Debian.  However, I could replicate the bug
| above when I changed the first line of src/plplotdoc.xml.in to:
|
|     <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
|
| The standalone declaration tells the parser that the document has no
| external definitions.  It seems that Joao system's expat library is
| assuming this.
|
| I did a commit recently that may fix this problem.  I added an
| explicit declaration standalone="yes" to the temporary file that is
| parsed by api2txt.pl, which is a "concatenation" of plplotdoc.xml.in
| (yes, Alan, *.in!) and api.xml.  I also added "text" definition for
| the entities usually found in api.xml.  The nice side-effect of this
| change is that, contrary to what happened before, the output in the
| *.txt is correct, with entities like "&deg;", "&gt;", and "&ndash;"
| being translated into " degrees", ">", and "--", respectively.
|
| Test this, please.

Yes, it works. And also in a straight RH-8.0 from a colleague. And also 
in a plain SuSE-8.1 from another colleague.

|
| When I will have some time, I will commit the change in
| bindings/octave/ Makefile.am to include the files in
| plplot_octave_txt into the tarball through make dist, such that
| regular users won't need XML Perl modules in order to build the
| Octave bindings.

Good idea.

Joao

Re: [Plplot-devel] New documentation at our SF website

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

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

> * Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...> [2003-03-09 19:24]:
>
> > I have already noticed the search function in acroread for the pdf form
> > sometimes doesn't work (try searching for plplot repeatedly and you soon
> > run into problems with "unlocked objects"
>
> Which version of Acroread are you using.  I have 5.0 here and never noticed
> the problem above.

Just for the record I have 4.05, but that may not be relevant since I had no
trouble with the previous version when I tested acroread search.  Have you
downloaded the *.pdf file I produced, and tried the experiment (repeated
searches for plplot)?  The fifth try here using the GUI from

acroread plplot-5.2.0.pdf

produces the message "Attempt to release an unlocked object".  For other
searches, this error message occurs immediately.  I have never encountered
this error before.  It may have something to do with the remaining openjade
error concerning flow objects (whatever they are) that I brought to your
attention.

>
> > info cross-references sometimes don't work
>
> Could you be more explicit on this, please?

Again, be sure to use the current version.

info plplot-info-5.2.0/plplotdoc.info

go to Node: pl_setcontlabelparam, then try to pursue the cross-reference
*Note pl_setcontlabelformat: pl_setcontlabelformat.  The error message is
Cannot find node `pl_setcontlabelformat; Set format of n....

It is not a consistent error; from my sampling a large fraction of the info
cross-references work, but certain cases (as in this example, but there are
others as well) don't work.  These cross-reference errors have long been in
the info version of the plplot documentation.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________