plplot-general

[Plplot-general] Independence of executables from build platform

[Michael E. <ms...@sa...>]

Hello,

I am working on a project that uses PLplot for 3D surface 
plotting (more info: http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA) and am 
having the problem that an executable linked with
libplplotfX.a on one platform won't execute on a different 
platform of the same type due to the dependence on external 
font files.  The error manifests itself as:


Cannot open library file: plstnd5.fnt
lib
dir="/home/mseldre/export/sierra/Dakota/VendorPackages/plplot/i686-unknown-linux/lib"

*** PLPLOT ERROR ***
Unable to open font file
Program aborted


As it is not practical to build the DAKOTA application from 
scratch on every platform where we'd like to run, we'd prefer
to be able to distribute executables without this type of 
dependency.  

I have read through the FAQ and other available documentation
and the only possible solution I can find it to distribute the 
font files along with the executable and have the user set a 
$PLPLOT_LIB environment variable.  This is do-able, but I'm 
writing to see if there may be other possibilities that would
be cleaner.

I am currently using an older version of PLplot (circa Sept. 
1998, the included NEWS file says version 4.99j), so the first 
thing I tried was downloading the latest (5.2.0) to see if 
that would help.  From the distribution, it appears that this 
version is still dependent on the same external font files.

So I don't know much about font management, but the desired
solution would be something where the font support is compiled
into the executable or, alternatively, is reliant on the locally
supported fonts such that external fonts are not needed.  Is
something like this available?  I looked a little at the freetype
configure option, but couldn't find much info on what this is
about.

Thanks very much for the help,
--Mike Eldred
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Michael S. Eldred, Ph.D.
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, Mail Stop 0847
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0847
(505)844-6479, FAX:(505)844-9297
ms...@sa...
http://endo.sandia.gov/~mseldre/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Re: [Plplot-general] Independence of executables from build platform

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

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Michael Eldred wrote:

> As it is not practical to build the DAKOTA application from
> scratch on every platform where we'd like to run, we'd prefer
> to be able to distribute executables without this type of
> dependency.

Since you are talking common executables, you must have the same platform
everywhere.  I suggest configuring plplot-5.2.0 with a unique prefix (e.g.,
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/plplot), then make; make install.  That last
step will put everything you need (fonts, drivers, etc.) into
/usr/local/plplot.  All you have to do after that is make a tarball of
everything in that tree and copy the tree to all your platforms. This
solution assumes you have the same system libraries installed in the same
positions on every platform.

If you want to get a bit fancier, and your platform is a Linux one, then you
can build an rpm instead.  This has already been done for you for RH 7.3.
See resources on http://plplot.sourceforge.net/resources/ for the link. That
page also says where you can get the latest developmental tarball and Debian
packages as well.

BTW, use ./configure --help to see what the options are.  For example, by
default you will build both shared and static libraries.  If you don't want
the shared libraries just specify --disable-shared.

One notorious configuration bug to watch out for in plplot-5.2.0 ---  the
combination of static drivers and double precision does not work.  This
configuration bug has been fixed in the cvs version and the developmental
tarball that is derived from the cvs version.

Also, stay tuned here for PLplot news.  In April we plan to make our next
release (with configuration superbly debugged, refined, and polished mostly
by Rafael Laboissiere's hard work), and you will first hear all the
details right here.

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-general] Independence of executables from buildplatform

[Michael E. <ms...@sa...>]

Hi Alan,

Thanks very much for the reply.

I'm afraid I wasn't very clear in my description.  I'm not trying 
to distribute a PLplot installation to other platforms, I'm trying 
to distribute an executable (DAKOTA in this case) to other platforms 
which has the PLplot library (libplplotfX.a) linked in as a graphics 
library.  This works fine for all of our various DAKOTA libraries 
(see http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA/licensing/license.html), except 
for this dependence of PLplot on external font files.  We'd prefer 
for our DAKOTA users to be able to download a DAKOTA executable from 
our site and just run it as is, without the need to install 
additional files, have root privelege, etc.

So the question is really: can PLplot be built as a self-contained
library without dependence on external files (and without dependence
on the paths to these files that were present on the build platform)?  
This may not be possible, but thought it would be worth asking.  My
hope was that there would be an option to either embed the fonts or
rely on native platform fonts. 

Also, w.r.t. our plplot configuration, we are currently configuring
using the --prefix=<build_dir>, --disable-tcl, and --without-shlib
options.

Thanks,
--Mike


"Alan W. Irwin" wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Michael Eldred wrote:
> 
> > As it is not practical to build the DAKOTA application from
> > scratch on every platform where we'd like to run, we'd prefer
> > to be able to distribute executables without this type of
> > dependency.
> 
> Since you are talking common executables, you must have the same platform
> everywhere.  I suggest configuring plplot-5.2.0 with a unique prefix (e.g.,
> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/plplot), then make; make install.  That last
> step will put everything you need (fonts, drivers, etc.) into
> /usr/local/plplot.  All you have to do after that is make a tarball of
> everything in that tree and copy the tree to all your platforms. This
> solution assumes you have the same system libraries installed in the same
> positions on every platform.
> 
> If you want to get a bit fancier, and your platform is a Linux one, then you
> can build an rpm instead.  This has already been done for you for RH 7.3.
> See resources on http://plplot.sourceforge.net/resources/ for the link. That
> page also says where you can get the latest developmental tarball and Debian
> packages as well.
>
> BTW, use ./configure --help to see what the options are.  For example, by
> default you will build both shared and static libraries.  If you don't want
> the shared libraries just specify --disable-shared.
> 
> One notorious configuration bug to watch out for in plplot-5.2.0 ---  the
> combination of static drivers and double precision does not work.  This
> configuration bug has been fixed in the cvs version and the developmental
> tarball that is derived from the cvs version.
> 
> Also, stay tuned here for PLplot news.  In April we plan to make our next
> release (with configuration superbly debugged, refined, and polished mostly
> by Rafael Laboissiere's hard work), and you will first hear all the
> details right here.
> 
> Alan

Thanks,
--Mike
-- 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Michael S. Eldred, Ph.D.
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, Mail Stop 0847
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0847
(505)844-6479, FAX:(505)844-9297
ms...@sa...
http://endo.sandia.gov/~mseldre/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Re: [Plplot-general] Independence of executables from buildplatform

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

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, Michael Eldred wrote:

> I'm trying
> to distribute an executable (DAKOTA in this case) to other platforms
> which has the PLplot library (libplplotfX.a) linked in as a graphics
> library....

Sorry, I was completely in the mindset of shared libraries, dynamic drivers,
etc., where the best solution is to distribute the installed PLplot tree (or
the parts of it which you need).  However, if you are statically linking the
PLplot library into your DAKOTA executable, then I think the simplest
solution (as you have already discovered) is to distribute the (Hershey)
font files with your DAKOTA executable and have your users set the
environment variable PLPLOT_LIB.

The other alternative you mentioned, freetype, actually works very well for
our gd driver (which implements our png and jpeg devices using the gd
library).  It does use system fonts.  However, it does not yet work with
other devices (the associated drivers will need some rewriting to use it),
and you probably don't want to limit yourself just to the png and jpeg
devices.

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-general] Independence of executables from build platform

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

On Tuesday 18 March 2003 00:58, Michael Eldred wrote:
| Hello,
|
| I am working on a project that uses PLplot for 3D surface
| plotting (more info: http://endo.sandia.gov/DAKOTA) and am
| having the problem that an executable linked with
| libplplotfX.a on one platform won't execute on a different
| platform of the same type due to the dependence on external
| font files.  The error manifests itself as:
|
|
| Cannot open library file: plstnd5.fnt
| lib
| dir="/home/mseldre/export/sierra/Dakota/VendorPackages/plplot/i686-un
|known-linux/lib"
|
| *** PLPLOT ERROR ***
| Unable to open font file
| Program aborted
|
|
| As it is not practical to build the DAKOTA application from
| scratch on every platform where we'd like to run, we'd prefer
| to be able to distribute executables without this type of
| dependency.
|
| I have read through the FAQ and other available documentation
| and the only possible solution I can find it to distribute the
| font files along with the executable and have the user set a
| $PLPLOT_LIB environment variable.  This is do-able, but I'm
| writing to see if there may be other possibilities that would
| be cleaner.
|
| I am currently using an older version of PLplot (circa Sept.
| 1998, the included NEWS file says version 4.99j), so the first
| thing I tried was downloading the latest (5.2.0) to see if
| that would help.  From the distribution, it appears that this
| version is still dependent on the same external font files.
|
| So I don't know much about font management, but the desired
| solution would be something where the font support is compiled
| into the executable

- I thing that it would be be possible to put the fonts in the library 
archive, or even build them at run time, as they are generated by 
programs (see the fonts directory -- but the README does not fully 
applies anymore), but that would be a bit strange.
- A stripped library has 240KB, and the font and map files have 
277KBytes.
- the freetype library could be a solution, but then the systems where 
you want plplot to run should have the library. But the xwin driver 
that you are probably using has no support for freetype (yet -- if you 
feel that this solution is the best for you, you could add that feature 
to the driver and contribute the code :-).
- you have to "distribute" the plplot library, so why not distribute the 
fonts also and use PLPLOT_LIB?

| or, alternatively, is reliant on the locally
| supported fonts such that external fonts are not needed.  Is
| something like this available?  I looked a little at the freetype
| configure option, but couldn't find much info on what this is
| about.

try  http://www.freetype.org

Joao
|
| Thanks very much for the help,
| --Mike Eldred