>>>>> On Wed, 23 Feb 2011, James Cloos wrote: > Gnuplot’s cairopdf terminal generates vector output. One might argue > that it is not optimal, but only because it uses line segments > rather than cubic curves to approximate graphs. (Ie, it uses cairo’s > lineto rather than curveto functions.)
> But so do gnuplot’s native terminals (I tested postscript and svg.) > That is just how gnuplot draws. Thank you for this nice analysis. > I’d still keep the pdf USE flag with its current meaning; users may > have existing gnuplot scripts which use gnuplot’s pdf terminal > and/or apps which generate such scripts. I don't think that keeping media-libs/pdflib in the tree is realistic. There is no Gentoo maintainer and it has open security issues. Besides, version 7 is discontinued, and version 8 is available only as a binary (static) library under commercial licensing. Of course, such decisions are sometimes painful. But will they be less painful if we postpone them by another year or two? > Unless, of course, a patch is added which makes «set term pdf» an > alias for «set term cairopdf». Upstream has wisely named the terminal pdfcairo (not cairopdf). Therefore, gnuplot's autocompletion will do its job, without any additional patch. Ulrich
