Both the endianness and IEEE float issues are dealt with in a portable way by the functions in src/pdfutils.c. Neither integers or floating point are dependent on the native architecture, making the metafiles 100% portable.
1. Endianness is "little", by fiat, implemented by shifts & masks. 2. Floating point is IEEE, by fiat, implemented as per the spec. At the time some architectures didn't use IEEE floats (e.g. Cray) and there wasn't much need for f.p. output for a device driver, so speed wasn't an issue. Design issues include: - As mentioned, it fell out of active use so as device driver capability grew, plmeta became unable to fully reproduce the observed output. - The physical device coordinate space was a limiting factor, say for later zooms. - Ditto for the physical device API. A metafile/renderer built at a higher level would've had more versatility. -- Maurice LeBrun ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dive into the World of Parallel Programming! The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
