Libplot(3pm)

NAME
Graphics::Libplot - Perl extension for libplot plotting library

SYNOPSIS
  use Graphics::Libplot ':All';

DESCRIPTION
This module lets you create plots by calling the routines in the libplot library. The libplot library is included in the plotutils package. Wrappers for each published C function are present. So the section of the plotutils info pages on programming in C should be your main reference. There are a few possible confusions, which are noted below. libplot has three different api's. This perl module provides and interface to the second one. It is the same as the most recent api, except that the the functions are not re-entrant. The api supported here is described in the section "Older C application programming interfaces" in the libplot manual.

Some of the C routines require character constants rather than strings. When using the equivalent perl function, you must wrap the character with the 'ord' function. For instance, alabel(ord 'c', ord 'c', "some text"); , will write some centered text.

There is another unrelated perl-module interface to GNU libplot, called "Graphics::Plotter".

EXPORTING FUNCTIONS
None of the libplot functions is exported by default. If you do not import any functions you must prepend the module name to each function. To call the pl_openpl() function you would give,

 Graphics::Libplot::pl_openpl();

However, if you include the library with

 use Graphics::Libplot ':All'

then all of the functions will be exported, and you do not need to prepend the module name. In this case you need to be careful because there are many function names which may collide with others in your program.

On the other hand you can use one of

 use Graphics::Libplot ':INTEGERLOW'
 use Graphics::Libplot ':FLOATLOW'

to get just integer or just floating point plotting.

Be aware that the interface is still under development so more names will be added, and your scripts may need to be changed.

EXAMPLES
There are additional examples included in the source distribution. (They are in /usr/share/doc/libgraphics-libplot-perl/examples on Debian systems.) This example draws a spiraling box pattern.

 use Graphics::Libplot ':ALL';

 # type of plotting device
 $device = 'X';
 if (@ARGV) {
    $device = $ARGV[0];
    die "Uknown device: $ARGV[0]" unless $ARGV[0] =~ /^ps|X|fig$/;
 }

 {   # environment for local variables

  my $SIZE=100;
  my ($i,$f,$s,$sf);
  pl_parampl ("BITMAPSIZE", "700x700");
  $handle = pl_newpl($device, stdin, stdout, stderr); # open xwindow display
  pl_selectpl($handle);
  pl_openpl();
  pl_fspace(-$SIZE,-$SIZE, $SIZE, $SIZE); # specify user coord system
  pl_pencolorname ("blue");
  pl_fontname("HersheySerif");
  $s = 10;
  $f = 10;
  $sf = 1- .0012;
  for($i=1;$i<3000;$i++){
     pl_fscale($sf,$sf);
     pl_fbox(60+$s*sin($i/$f),
          60+$s*sin($i/$f),
          75-$s*cos($i/$f),
          75-$s*cos($i/$f));
     pl_frotate(1);
  }
 }
 pl_closepl();
 pl_selectpl(0);
 pl_deletepl($handle);

BUGS
The newest API is not supported. There is no test suite with this module, so it is not clear that everything works correctly.

AUTHOR
John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu> wrote this perl interface.

The libplot C library is developed by Robert Maier.

COPYRIGHT
libplot-perl is copyrighted by John Lapeyre and may be distributed only under the terms of either the Gnu General Public License, or of the perl Artistic License.

SEE ALSO
perl(1).