Downloading DATAPLOT for Unix Hosts

Alan Heckert Statistical Engineering Division Room 331, Building 820 National Institute Of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8980 (301) 975-2899 or FTS 879-2899 alan.heckert@nist.gov

Jim Filliben Statistical Engineering Division Room 353, Building 820 National Institute Of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8980 (301) 975-2855 or FTS 879-2855 james.filliben@nist.gov

Dataplot is a command driven program. You can optionally run Dataplot using a graphical user interface (GUI) that is implemented using the Tcl/Tk scripting language. Reference will be made below to the "command line" version and the "GUI" version.

The download involves the following components:

1. Dataplot executables - Pre-compiled Dataplot executable files are maintained for a number of Unix platforms. The list is determined by the platforms that I have available at NIST (a few executables are donated by members of the user community). The list of supported executables is subject to change as the hardware available to me changes.

2. Dataplot auxillary files - These are auxillary files (e.g., on-line help files) used by Dataplot. Note that the command line version of Dataplot will run without them, although certain features will not be available. The auxillary files consist of the following parts:
   • The auxillary files common to both the command line and GUI versions. This includes on-line help files, sample data files, sample program files, and so on.
   • The Tcl/Tk script files.
   • The menu files for the GUI version (these are ASCII text files that determine the contents of the menus in the Dataplot GUI).

3. Dataplot source and build files - These files contain the Dataplot source code. In addition, script files are available for building Dataplot on various platforms.

   You do not need to download the source if you can run one of the pre-built executables. However, if you need an executable for an unsupported system, or you are running an incompatible version of the operating system for a supported platform, or if you want to make your own source modifications, then you will need to build Dataplot from the source code.

In particular, the following two problems can sometimes occur.

1. Our anonymous ftp site performs an "nslookup" command in order to identify the requesting site. The nslookup command is used to query internet domain name servers. If our ftp site rejects you, it is likely due to the failure of this nslookup query to resolve your internet name/address. If this happens, I cannot really provide any assistance. My only suggestion would be to talk to your local system administrators to see if there is some reason why your machine is not resolved by nslookup. It is unlikely that NIST will change its policy regarding the use of nslookup to resolve names anytime soon.

2. Our ftp server also has a 60 user limit. This limit is sometimes reached. If the ftp request is rejected, you may want to try connecting at a time when the site is likely to be less busy.

I simply do not have the time or expertise to diagnose these types of problems. I can check to see if our ftp server is up, but not much beyond that.

If you are unable to download via the web, you can do the following:

1. You can try using anonymous ftp directly.

   ftp  ftp.nist.gov
   user name> anonymous
   password>  your e-mail address
   >cd /pub/dataplot/unix
   >dir
                

   At this point, the dir command will list several files and sub-directories. You can search these sub-directories for the needed files. Be sure to enter a "binary" command before downloading any "tar.Z" files.

   I only recommend this if you already reasonably familiar with using anonymous ftp.

1. You have downloaded the executable file to your current directory or you built a Dataplot executable from the source code: dataplot.Z

2. You have downloaded the Dataplot auxiliary files to your current directory: dataplot_reference.tar.Z

3. If Expect and Tcl/Tk are not already installed on your system, then you should install them first. Dataplot requires at least version 8.0 for Tcl/Tk. However, I recommend upgrading to version 8.3 if you are running a pre 8.3 version. Version 8.0 was a major rewrite which concentrated on "getting things to work". Each of the subsequent 8.x versions has included additional optimization of performance. The auxillary files section provides links to the Expect and Tcl/Tk sites.

   If you do not want to install the GUI version, then you can skip the installation of Tcl/Tk and Expect.

mv dataplot_sun.exe.Z dataplot.Z

You probably need to be "superuser" to create or add files to this directory. If you do not have superuser priveleges (and getting the cooperation of your local system administrator is an issue), then a good alternative is ~/bin.

The above are simply convenient conventions. You can in fact install it anyplace you wish. In the discussion below, I assume you are using /usr/local/bin. If not, replace /usr/local/bin with the appropriate directory in the instructions below.

1. mkdir /usr/local/bin (skip if the directory already exists)
2. mv dataplot.Z /usr/local/bin/dataplot
3. cd /usr/local/bin
4. uncompress dataplot.Z
5. chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/dataplot

You probably need to be "superuser" to create or add files to this directory. If you do not have superuser priveleges (and getting the cooperation of your local system administrator is an issue), then a good alternative is ~/lib/dataplot.

The above are simply convenient conventions. You can in fact install these files anyplace you wish. In the discussion below, I assume you are using /usr/local/lib/dataplot. If not, replace /usr/local/lib/dataplot with the appropriate directory in the instructions below.

1. mkdir /usr/local/lib (skip this step if the directory already exists)
2. mkdir /usr/local/lib/dataplot
3. mv dataplot_reference.tar.Z /usr/local/lib/dataplot
4. cd /usr/local/lib/dataplot
5. uncompress dataplot_reference.tar.Z
6. tar -xvf dataplot_reference.tar
7. rm dataplot_reference.tar
8. If you did not use /usr/local/lib/dataplot, place the following command in either your .login or .cshrc file (or whatever is the proper startup file for the shell you are using):
   setenv DATAPLOT_FILES <directory_name>

   where <directory_name> is the name of the directory where the reference files are located. This command is not needed if you use /usr/local/lib/dataplot. This directory name should contain an ending slash. For example,

   setenv DATAPLOT_FILES /home/fs1d/myname/lib/dataplot/

   This is the syntax for the C shell. Other Unix shells may have different syntax for defining global environment variables.

cd ~/
dataplot
device 1 x11
call minitest.dp
exit

• /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frmenus

  This directory contains the Tcl/Tk scripts used by the Dataplot GUI.

• /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frmenus

  This directory contains the ASCII files that define the contents of the menus in the Dataplot GUI.

It is assumed that Tcl/Tk and Expect are already installed on your system. Make a note of the location of these utilities on your local system (typically, this will be /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib).

Dataplot uses the following environment variables to identify the location of the Dataplot menu files and script files respectively:

setenv XDP_FILE <directory for frontend menu files>
setenv XDP_CODE <directory for frontend script files>

setenv TCL_LIBRARY <pathname>/lib/tcl
setenv TK_LIBRARY <pathname>/lib/tk

For convenience, the script file xdataplot (this should be copied to /usr/local/bin or some other directory in your default path) is provided. This script defines the above environment variables and then calls /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript/xdp (which is the main script for the Dataplot GUI). You should manually edit the xdataplot file to make sure that the enviornment variables are set correctly for your system. The following is a typical setup for this file:

#!/bin/csh -f
#
#  Script to run DATAPLOT graphical user interface.
#
#  This script should be modified to indicate the location
#  of certain executables, libraries, directories on your
#  local system.
#
#  The following 2 environment variables should specify
#  where the Tcl/Tk version 8 libraries reside on your
#  system.
setenv TCL_LIBRARY  /usr/local/lib/tcl8.3
setenv TK_LIBRARY  /usr/local/lib/tk8.3
#
#  The following environment variable specifies where
#  the menu files reside.
setenv XDP_FILE  /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frmenus
#
#  The following environment variable specifies where
#  the menu files reside.
setenv XDP_CODE  /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript
#
#  Following line may be required for some Sun platforms
#   unsetenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH
#
#  execute front-end script
/usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript/xdp  $argv
         

The first line of the file /usr/local/lib/dataplot/frscript/xdp is something like

#!/usr/local/bin/expectk5.31

If you are not running Expect, then the first line should be something like:

#!/usr/local/bin/wish

In order to run the front-end, enter the following command:

/usr/local/bin/xdataplot

xdpConfig

Date created: 6/5/2001
Last updated: 4/24/2006
Please email comments on this WWW page to sedwww@cam.nist.gov.