Building PGPLOT 5.2 Graphics Library on Linux

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This post provides instructions on building PGPLOT with Absoft Fortran 95 11.0 and later for 32 or 64 bit Linux.

The PGPLOT Graphics Subroutine Library is a Fortran- or C-callable, device-independent graphics package for making simple scientific graphs. It is intended for making graphical images of publication quality with minimum effort on the part of the user. For most applications, the program can be device-independent, and the output can be directed to the appropriate device at run time.

DOWNLOADING THE REQUIRED PACKAGES

Full documentation and the primary source package required to build PGPLOT can be obtained here http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/

An additional package with Absoft specific additions can be obtained here http://www.absoft.com/electronicdelivery/library/absoft11_pgplot52_additions.tar.gz. 

The Absoft additions for PGPLOT on Linux consist of two configuration files and a sample drivers.list file:

        sys_linux/absoft11_gcc32.conf
        sys_linux/absoft11_gcc64.conf
        sys_linux/absoft11_sample_drivers.list

CREATING THE PGPLOT SOURCE TREE

 Extract the primary PGPLOT source with the following command:

     tar -xzvf pgplot5.2.tar.gz

This will create a directory named pgplot in the current working directory. Next, extract the Absoft specific additions into this directory with the following commands:

     cd pgplot
     tar -xzvf ../absoft11_pgplot52_additions.tar.gz

MAKING A TARGET BUILD DIRECTORY

The PGPLOT documentation strongly suggests that you do not build PGPLOT inside the pgplot source directory.  The remaining instructions below assume that a directory named pgplot_build has been created at the same level as the PGPLOT source directory.

SELECTING DEVICE DRIVERS

You may create your own drivers.list file as described in the file install-unix.txt or you may use the sample provided with the Absoft additions.  The sample configuration file provides the following devices:

 Interactive device:

    /XWINDOW   (X window window@node:display.screen/xw)

 Non-interactive file formats:
    /GIF       (Graphics Interchange Format file, landscape orientation)
    /VGIF      (Graphics Interchange Format file, portrait orientation)
    /NULL      (Null device, no output)
    /PS        (PostScript file, landscape orientation)
    /VPS       (PostScript file, portrait orientation)
    /CPS       (Colour PostScript file, landscape orientation)
    /VCPS      (Colour PostScript file, portrait orientation)

To use the Absoft sample,  copy it from pgplot/sys_linux/absoft11_sample_drivers.list to the pgplot_build directory and then rename it to drivers.list.

GENERATING A MAKEFILE AND BUILDING THE LIBRARY AND EXAMPLES

With the pgplot_build directory as the current working directory, enter this command to  generate a makefile  for building 32 bit PGPLOT:

    ../pgplot/makemake ../pgplot linux absoft11_gcc32

or this command to generate a  makefile for building 64 bit PGPLOT:

    ../pgplot/makemake ../pgplot linux absoft11_gcc64

After generating the makefile, simply enter 'make' to build the PGPLOT library and the example programs.  If you want to build the C interface to the PGPLOT library, enter 'make cpg' after the first make has completed.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further information on building PGPLOT can be found in the file install-unix.txt located in the PGPLOT source tree.