As of commit e298aa70a, the installed version of PLplot works again after a long time (since early April) where it did not work. This commit completes a project to implement a highly recommended modernization of our build system (i.e., to use a namespaced prefix (of "PLPLOT::") for every target that is installed. This commit also solves some further "modern software" PLplot bugs that occur for Debian Buster versions of free software libraries.
Preliminary work on this project started in March. Although the build-tree version of PLPlot worked throughout this time, my apologies for the long down-time for the installed version of PLplot caused by (1) the distraction of replacing my computer right in the middle of this project and (2) dealing with the quite large number of "new software" version issues caused by upgrading my software from Debian Jessie to Debian Buster right in the middle of this project. I got an unconstrained (i.e., virtually complete with both interactive and noninteractive tests for both the core build tree and installed examples trees for our three principal library/driver configurations) comprehensive test of PLplot to work for me for Debian Buster so I encourage you to make such a comprehensive test yourselves (likely with "--do_test_interactive no" initially to save yourselves quite a bit of "baby-sitting" to get through the test) and let me know of any issues you find. This good comprehensive test result for Debian Buster has some caveats. * intermittent (UGH) plmeta error There was an error concerning an attempted *interactive* test on the (confirmed) disabled plmeta device for the CMake-based build system for the installed examples. Such tests should not occur because the device is disabled and especially not for interactive tests since it is a noninteractive device! However, since that error was a showstopper for that component of the overall comprehensive test, I have confirmed all our device numbers were unique (see the above commit message for details) to make sure no other device was being misidentified as plmeta. Furthermore, I have been completely unable to trigger that error again with two similar comprehensive tests (one parallel, one not) focussing on just that one component. And also for one exactly identical comprehensive test (parallel and for all components). So my plan is to wait until this nasty error triggers again (if it ever does) and look deeper at it then. So if you see any "plmeta" testing issues in the near future for the default case where plmeta is disabled, please let me know! * Modern (Debian Buster) software bugs + Modern Ada gnatmake (version 7.3.0-2) has a bug where parallel builds don't work properly. There is no way I want to give up the huge speed advantage of parallel builds so I have worked around this bug by disabling Ada for the above test. I have made an unoffical query about this return of parallel gnatmake issues to Debian with no response so far so it is time to escalate this to an official Debian bug report and likely an official upstream gnatmake bug report as well. + Modern Lua 5.3.3 has a bug where if more than a modest number of arrays are initialized all arithmetic starts failing! Only example 23 in the set of Lua examples exposes this bug so I have worked around the issue by temporarily dropping that example from the Lua tests. I have reported this issue with a simple (completely independent of PLplot) test Lua script demonstrating this Lua issue as an official Debian bug report, but there has been no response so it is past time to take this upstream to the Lua developers. + Our extXdrawable_demo application is written for the ancient GTK+ version 2 case and needs to be rewritten for the (modern) GTK+ version 3 case. Jonathan Woithe has kindly volunteered to do that rewrite, but until he completes his work, I have worked around the issue by disabling this example. * Modern (Debian Buster) software warnings + OCaml build warnings These seem fairly innocuous, but this is a Debian Buster versus Debian Jessie regression that I need to investigate further. + I am now getting undefined symbol warnings from "ldd -r" tests done by the above script run. These issues did not cause any obvious errors, but this is a Debian Buster versus Debian Jessie regression that I need to investigate further. Now that the installed version of PLplot is largely working again and both build-tree and install-tree PLplot more or less working for a system (Debian Buster) with near cutting-edge software versions, I am beginning to consider making a PLplot release. My current plan is to push quite a few further topics (all of them much shorter than the present topic that was just finished) before that release which would likely delay the release until at least December or possibly into early 2019. However, if someone here has a strong preference for an earlier release than that sort of time scale, I would certainly be willing to consider that possibility by dropping some of the topics I want to work on before the release. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel