CORRESPONDENCE

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

Downloading

• Unix users should download gzip tar files. Zip files are intended only for PC environments (text files have CR/LF line terminators).
  
  

Compiling from source code

• 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
  Or, this: pl -gif stock.htm
  For further testing see pltestsuite , or run some gallery examples.
  
  

Using ploticus

• This error: pl error 4899: No PLOTICUS_PREFABS env var (or hardcoded Makefile PREFABS_DIR) found, indicates that the user does not 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).
  
  
• Use the -debug command line option. The resulting diagnostic output has been improved recently, and there is now better debugging support for CGI mode.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• If you're debugging a script, use the proc getdata showresults attribute if there is any doubt about the incoming data or how it is being processed or filtered. Ditto for proc processdata. Use proc print or #write to print out variable contents. Use #exit to stop script execution prematurely.
  
  
• Check to be sure you aren't exceeding one of the program limitations
  
  
  

BUG REPORTS

When reporting a problem, please do the following:

1. Use the -debug command line option and send the resulting diagnostic output.

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

3. Indicate your OS ( linux, solaris, windows/NT, etc.)

4. Indicate your pl version if it's not shown in the above diagnostic output (type pl -version to find out)

5. Describe exactly how you invoked pl. Using a prefab? CGI mode? By typing in a pl command? Via perl or PHP? Provide the exact pl command used (or the URL if using CGI mode). If you used a config file please attach it.