Correspondence, troubleshooting, and bug reports


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Manual page for Correspondence,_troubleshooting,_and_bug_reports(PL)

CORRESPONDENCE

Steve Grubb is the author of ploticus.

You can reach me by email at scg@jax.org , or by posting to the ploticus news group (you don't have to join the newsgroup to post or browse). I reserve the right to use your message in the user feedback page or FAQ . If you have interesting examples or web sites that use ploticus, please send the URLs or script files.


TROUBLESHOOTING

Here are some troubleshooting tips and common snafus:
  • Unix users should download gzip tar files. Zip files are intended only for PC environments (text files have CR/LF line terminators).

  • Before compiling, review the Makefile and follow the simple 3-step installation guide.

  • An ANSI-compliant C compiler such as gcc is required to compile the source code.

  • After building, do a quick test. From within the src directory type pl stock.htm. For further testing see pltestsuite , or run some gallery examples.

  • If you get this error: pl error 4899: No PLOTICUS_PREFABS env var (or hardcoded Makefile PREFABS_DIR) found, it indicates that no default prefabs directory was specified at build time and that each user must have the PLOTICUS_PREFABS environment variable set and exported. It must contain the full pathname of the directory where ploticus prefabs reside, as included in the download.

  • Be sure you know which version you are executing (you might have earlier ploticus versions on your system and not realize it). Use pl -version to print the ploticus version; use the unix command which pl to print the file that you are actually executing when you type pl.

  • Unix builds do not read native PC text files. This problem occurs if pl is compiled on a unix machine and you feed it native PC text files, either as scripts or data files. Symptoms may include truncated multi-line text items, or garbage characters appearing at the end of text items.

  • If an image result contains blank areas at the top or side, it is probably because the image is larger than 8" x 8" in one or both dimensions. To generate images larger than 8" x 8" a sufficient pagesize must be specified, either on the command line or via proc page.

  • If viewing result images in a browser, remember that image caching is usually being done, and that you might not be seeing the most recently generated image, even when you Reload or Refresh.


BUG REPORTS

Much of the incremental improvement in this package has been due to the careful bug reports that have been sent in by attentive users. Thanks! Bug reports should be sent to scg@jax.org or may be posted to the ploticus news group.

When reporting a problem, please supply the following info:

1. the OS environment where you invoked pl (eg. linux, solaris, windows/NT, etc.)

2. pl version number (type pl -version to find out).

3. exactly how you invoke pl. Using a prefab? CGI mode? By typing in a pl command? Via perl or PHP? With or without a config file? Provide the exact pl command used. Since there are now a number of possibilities, this is especially important.

4. a self-contained example that demonstrates the problem. Usually the first thing I do is attempt to reproduce the problem here.


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Copyright Steve Grubb


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