We should have long since changed the subject line, but better late than
never....
I have been in contact with both Doug Hunt and especially Tim Jenness, and I
will attempt to summarize what they said.
There are actually two independent Perl interfaces to PLplot.
(1) There is Tim's hand-crafted one at
(http://search.cpan.org/~tjenness/Graphics-PLplot-0.03/) which does not
require PDL, but which with some work could be generalized to process
arrays created by PDL. The interface is built with a platform-dependent
Makefile that is generated by standard Perl methods which "should" work
on bare windows with "the make that is used by MS VC++6" (Tim cannot
recall the name of it. Is that nmake?) Even aside from the required PDL
generalization work, my impression is that Tim's interface is somewhat
limited in terms of the PLplot API it covers, and has not been worked
on for a long time.
(2) There is Doug Hunt's (and Rafael's) PDL interface to PLplot which is
completely dependent on PDL. It uses a PDL method of generating the
interface which again (according to both Doug and Tim) "should" work on
bare windows. I think Rafael was conscientious about creating a
reasonably complete coverage of the PLplot API, but there has been no
recent work on it.
My impression is nobody has ever tried to build either interface on bare
windows, but Doug forwarded my initial inquiry (which included details of
our CMake build system efforts on windows) to the PDL list so because of our
new build system which provides such improved results on windows somebody
may try building the PDL interface on windows soon. Those lurking on this
list who are interested in the Perl/PDL interface on bare windows might want
to try that build also.
Personally, I think PDL is essential for serious work because of the speed
with which it can process arrays. So I think that rules out (1) above
unless and until somebody generalizes it to handle PDL arrays and completes
the API. The one drawback of (2) is that PDL is a prerequisite rather than
an option which introduces a barrier to entry for those who would like to
try a Perl interface to PLplot without having to install all the extra PDL
machinery. However, that is just a minor drawback so (2) is a good choice if
it actually works on bare windows and it continues to be maintained.
Where does this leave my original SWIG idea? First, I don't think there is
any point working on a SWIG interface unless that interface handles both
ordinary Perl and PDL arrays. So this point should be checked before
anybody proceeds further. However, assuming the SWIG-generated interface
would pass this test, then it is certainly an excellent choice to pursue if
interface (2) above does not work on windows or falls into disrepair.
Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________
Linux-powered Science
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