Hi John,
As one of the maintainers of PLplot and in particular the Fortran binding, I
would like to try and answer your questions. See below in context.
Regards,
Arjen
From: John AUSTIN [mailto:john.aus...@wanadoo.es]
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 7:01 AM
To: plplot-general@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [Plplot-general] PLPLOT & Getting It To Work with Silverfrost FTN95
Fortran
Hello,
I've just discovered PLPLOT and am very impressed with the documented features.
I am interesed in getting it to work with the Silverfrost FTN95 FORTRAN
compiler and specifially with the CLEARWIN+ GUI capabilities within it , more
specifically within a %gr graphics window.
>>AM: It has been a long time since I used that compiler, so I do not remember
>>all the particulars. The current binding is based on the Fortran 2003
>>features for C-Fortran interfacing. If Silverfrost FTN95 supports these
>>features, then there should be no problem - we have successfully used three
>>unrelated compilers (gfortran, Intel Fortran and NAG Fortran) on various
>>platforms (Linux, Cygwin, MinGW-w64/MSYS2 and bare Windows) to build PLplot.
If Silverfrost FTN95 is limited to the Fortran 95 standard, then you would have
to use the previous binding, which relies on the C side to solve the
"impedance" problem. I hope that is not the case ;), as we do not maintain that
anymore.
Aft e r a quick perusal of the PLPLOT documentation I see:-
a) for installation via MAKEFILE compilation there are no 'specific'
instructions for SF FTN95 (there are for other compilers)
>>AM: If I remember correctly, Silverfrost FTN95 had a different philosophy for
>>building programs and libraries than via Makefiles. But that does not
>>preclude the use of Makefiles of course, as long as you have a make utility
>>available.
The crux however is whether CMake supports that compiler. If not, we would have
to create special support for it. Not impossible nor particular difficult, but
it is an extra step.
The main message is: try running CMake and then "make" (or whatever name the
make utility has). If this succeeds, you're in business for at least the first
couple of steps. If not, we will need the full report of both steps to see what
can be done about it.
b) in the section regarding 'output to interactive devices' the situation
is even less clear for a novice like myself in these matters. What is in fact
'an interactive device' ?
>>AM: PLplot supports devices such as PostScript or PDF, which are basically
>>file-based, that is, they produce a file instead of a window on the screen.
>>The interactive devices do produce a window and you can click on it to get
>>the next page, for instance.
c) in section 1.2.4 (Interactive Platforms) GDI driver compatability is
mentionedand I know FTN95 'supports' this , however I don't know if that in
itself is sufficient to guarantee it will work.
>>AM: That is a good question. I cannot reliably answer that one. The devices
>>are supposed to be independent of direct support from the compiler, as they
>>use system libraries. So I suppose it will not be a problem.
At the end of the day I guess my question is "Will PLPLOT work in SF FTN95 'out
of the box' ?" after following the basic install instructions or am I likely to
have some problems ?
Also , will it work for both 32bit and 64bit in FTN95 ? or maybe PLPLOT needs
to be 'compiled' in both for use in each case as necessary ?
>>AM: You need to clarify this requirement:
32bits versus 64bits _data_ - the new binding makes that transparant. In the
previous version you had to build two separate versions, one for
single-precision data and one for double-precision data.
32bits versus 64bits _applications_ - the OS does not allow the combination of
32bits and 64bits libraries or programs. So if that is what you mean, you will
have to build it twice, once for each word size.
Has anyone had experience with getting it to work with SF FTN95 ?
>>AM: Not to my knowledge. It might be an interesting experiment. That said,
>>the one big unknown in this situation is how PLplot can cooperate with
>>ClearWin and its GUI capabilities. That will depend on the way the event
>>loops may be combined or not.
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