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Downloading DATAPLOT for non-Unix, non-Windows Hosts

Contact Information February 2002.

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

Introduction Dataplot is available in executable form for various types of Unix platforms, for PC Windows, and for Mac OSX. We do not provide executables for other environments because we do not have these platforms available at NIST. However, the Dataplot source code is quite portable and Dataplot can in fact be installed on a wide variety of machines. For example, at NIST over the past 20 years we have used Univac EXEC-8, VAX/VMS, CDC NOS/VE, Sun Solaris, and Windows NT/2000 systems as the primary development platforms for Dataplot. Dataplot has been installed successfully on several other types of mainframe platforms by customers.

The primary requirements are access to a good Fortran compiler and sufficient memory ("segmented" versions of Dataplot have been created on machines with limited memory, however this is now essentially a non-issue on modern computer hardware).

If you have a machine for which a pre-built executable is not available, you can download the source code and compile the code on your local system.

Anonymous FTP Preferred Download Method For unsupported hosts, the source and auxiliary files can be transferred via anonymous ftp. If your system does not support ftp, contact Alan Heckert for assistance. We may be able to send the source code on some other type of media such as CD-R.

We do not provide executables for non-Unix/PC/Mac OSX platforms. If you install Dataplot for another platform and would be willing to provide the resulting executable for other users, contact Alan Heckert to make arrangements.

Users who do not have a Fortran compiler available, but do have a an ANSI standard C compiler should check the C version discussion.

Anonymous FTP Download Instructions Since the following source files are intended for a generic use, they are provided as ASCII text files (i.e., no compression and packing as done with tar on Unix and PKZIP on the PC). For this reason, we give the instructions for accessing the files from an anonymous ftp site rather than automatic web downloading.

From your local machine, create a "root" directory for Dataplot and move to that directory. I suggest creating 3 sub-directories with the names SRC, LIB, and BIN. I will use the names in the discussion below. If you use different names, make the appropriate substitutions in the instructions below.

Use anonymous ftp to copy the files.

    ftp ftp.nist.gov
    user>anonymous
    password><e-mail address>
    ftp>cd /pub/dataplot/other
    ftp>lcd src
    ftp>cd src
    ftp>prompt off
    ftp>mget *.c
    ftp>mget *.f
    ftp>mget *.INC
    ftp>cd ../command
    ftp>mget *
    ftp>cd ../reference
    ftp>lcd ../lib
    ftp>mget *
    ftp>cd ..
    ftp>lcd ..
    ftp>get minitest.dp minitest.dp
    ftp>quit
The command directory contains script files for building DATAPLOT on various systems. We would particularly recommend looking at dpcompile_vax.com, dplink_vax.com, and dpupdate_vax.com and modifying them for your platform. These are the command files for a VAX/VMS system.

The src directory contains about 50 Fortran source files, about 25 INCLUDE files, and about 3 C source files. Once the files are copied to your local machine, you may need to copy them to match the file extensions and names used on your local machine.

The source is approximately 15 megabytes. This can vary somewhat depending on what system you are on.

The reference files take about 2 MB total (most of this is the on-line help files).

Make Code Changes and Create a Build Script The next step is to make any needed source code changes.

The next step is to create a command script to compile and link DATAPLOT.

  • For VAX/VMS, use the files listed above (in the section for copying source files). These are straightforward command files that can be easily modified if needed.
  • Other systems should use either the VAX command files or the SGI script file as a model. If you need assistance, contact Alan Heckert.
For the Vax version, have users enter the following line into their login.com file:
    $!ASSIGN DATAPLO$
    $!DATAPLOT=="RUN DATAPLOT.EXE"
For example,
    $!ASSIGN DISK$STAT:[FILLIB.DATAPLOT] DATAPLO$
    $!DATAPLOT=="RUN DISK$STAT:[FILLIB.DATAPLOT]DATAPLOT.EXE
These commands identify the location of the DATAPLOT executable file and corresponding auxillary files and provide an alias for running DATAPLOT.
Test Dataplot Installation Once you successfully build a Dataplot executable, you can test it with the following macro:
    dataplot
    device 1 <insert proper device here>
    call minitest.dp
    exit
Installation Problems If you have problems with the installation, contact Alan Heckert for assistance.

Date created: 6/5/2001
Last updated: 2/15/2002
Please email comments on this WWW page to sedwww@cam.nist.gov.

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