Hi everybody: You have heard from me before about the epa_build project when I was using the preliminary name of "build_projects" for this project. When dreaming up the final "epa_build" name for this project I chose the "epa_" prefix to refer to the method which is to used by the project to control the individual software builds which is CMake's ExternalProject_Add command.
Just to remind everyone, the point of epa_build is to make it convenient to build and test PLplot and _all_ its dependencies. Therefore, the epa_build project provides a convenient opportunity for users on Windows platform (where many PLplot dependencies are not readily available unless you build them yourself) to enjoy the full power of PLplot and even more importantly from our perspective test all that power. It also provides an opportunity for Linux, Mac OS X, and Cygwin users to try out PLplot with later versions of dependencies (i.e., Tcl/Tk 8.6) that might not be available as their system version. It turns out that building all of the PLplot dependencies and PLplot itself from source is not going to be a onerous task for modern PC's; my last epa_build (which currently does not include Qt4, but which includes virtually all other PLplot dependencies such as pango/cairo) on Linux with a 5-year-old 2.8GHz 2-CPU box took only 0.5 hours which includes the time required by PLplot to run the test_noninteractive target. I assume that total build and test time will continue to be less than an hour even when the Qt4 build is included. Roughly an hour's worth of computer time is not a bad investment for users to get access to the most powerful version of PLplot on all platforms! The current status of epa_build is I am right in the middle of a transition from using an include(filename) approach for configuring the builds to an add_subdirectory(projectname) approach. The advantage of the latter approach is the CMake variables have a much more limited scope (so that variables set for one project do not affect any other project that is configured). I hope to finish up this transition by later today so that using the new add_subdirectory approach I can replicate what I did before which was to build and test PLplot and all its (non-Qt4) dependencies on Linux. Here is a list of other epa_build agenda items I hope to complete in the next 10 days: * Add a build configuration for Qt4. * Update to the latest Wine and get a "plplot_lite" (PLplot without the pango/cairo, Qt4, and wxwidgets dependencies) build and test to also work on the MinGW/MSYS/Wine platform like it did before the epa_build add_subdirectory reorganization and for an older version of Wine. * Attempt to add a Tcl8.6 and friends build for the Wine case. If that is a success, then our normal Tcl test targets such as test_pltcl_standard_examples and test_tclsh_standard_examples, should work, and there is also a good chance that test_c_ntk will work also since -dev ntk only depends on Tk and not X. Of course, our other Tk test targets (test_c_tk, test_plserver_standard_examples, test_wish_standard_examples, test_plserver_runAllDemos, and test_wish_runAllDemos) will not work on this platform because all the PLplot Tk functionality exercised by those tests ultimately depends on -dev xwin and X. @Arjen: If you are able to finish off the tkwin X to Tk change that I asked for, then test_wish_runAllDemos should also work on MinGW/MSYS and also run much faster on Cygwin (if the speed of -dev ntk on Cygwin is any guide). Also, when I finish off the above agenda items, then epa_build should be directly useful to you for convenient testing of PLplot on the MinGW/MSYS platform. It might also be useful to you on Cygwin if you are interested in testing PLplot for Tcl/Tk8.6 on that platform. (Note that Cygwin currently only provides packages for Tcl/Tk8.5.) 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); 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 __________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349351&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Plplot-devel mailing list Plplot-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-devel
