Re: overriding print.m pdf default terminal choices?

[Ben Abbott]

On Aug 24, 2009, at 6:43 PM, Ben Abbott wrote:

> On Aug 24, 2009, at 4:01 PM, Benjamin Lindner wrote:
>
> > Benjamin Lindner wrote:
> > > Ben Abbott wrote:
> > > > On Monday, August 17, 2009, at 11:27AM, "Benjamin Lindner" <address@hidden 
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > > Hello list,
> > > > >
> > > > > I wondered if it is possible to force print.m to use ghostscript  
> > > > > for
> > > > > printing to pdf even if gnuplot provides a pdfcairo terminal?
> > > > >
> > > > > I ask because the last available gnuplot for win32 does not  
> > > > > include the
> > > > > patch which fixes the spurious-pages-in-pdf-output bug.
> > > > > So a command as
> > > > > plot(0:0.1:10, sin(0:0.1:10), "@-"); print -dpdf test.pdf
> > > > > produces a three-page pdf.
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't know when there will be a new gnuplot release or snapshot
> > > > > release but the do not happen very frequently.
> > > > >
> > > > > So for the mingw32 binaries I'd like to have print.m to use ps- 
> > > > > >pdf via
> > > > > ghostscript for the moment.
> > > > >
> > > > > benjamin
> > > >
> > > > I assume you are referring to Octave's latest sources, and that  
> > > > you are not running gnuplot's development sources (meaning your  
> > > > version of gnuplot is 4.2.x, or earlier)?
> > > Actually I'm referring to the 3.2.x branch of octave and the  
> > > latest version of gnuplot available is the 2008-11-21 4.3.0 cvs  
> > > snapshot.
> > > > If so then, what you're asking for should be the default. If it  
> > > > is not, then the check for ghostscript may be failing.
> > > >
> > > > Does the code below indicate you have ghostscript installed?
> > > >
> > > >   if (~isempty (getenv ("GSC")))
> > > >     persistent ghostscript_binary = getenv ("GSC");
> > > >   else
> > > >     persistent ghostscript_binary = "gswin32c";
> > > >   endif
> > > >   [status, output] = system (sprintf ("if exist \"%s\" ( exit /B  
> > > > 1 ) else ( exit /B 0 )", ghostscript_binary));
> > > >   have_ghostscript = (status == 0)
> > > >
> > > > Ben
> > > thanks for the hint.
> > > I have the environment variable GSC defined as
> > > > ghostscript_binary = getenv("GSC")
> > > ghostscript_binary = C:\Programs\gs\gs8.62\bin\gswin32c.exe
> > > and naturally this executable exists.
> > > However, have_ghostscript evaluates to false.
> > > This is strange.
> > > Seems the exit code is not propagated into the variable status, as
> > > > [s,o]=system("exit 1")
> > > s =  127
> > > o =
> > > but
> > > > system("exit 1")
> > > ans =  1
> > > I need to investigate this further.
> >
> > Ben, I think your code snippet above is out of date.
> > In both 3.2.3 and current development tip I have
> >
> > elseif (ispc ())
> >     [status, output] = system (sprintf ("if exist \"%s\" ( exit /B  
> > 1 ) else ( exit /B 0 )", ghostscript_binary));
> >     have_ghostscript = (status ~= 0);
> > endif
> >
> > The fact that calling system with two outputs does not return the  
> > correct exit code on windows aside, I end up with have_ghostscript  
> > = 1.
> > I use the 4.3.0-cvs snapshot of 2008-11-21 (from the gnuplot  
> > homepage) and built with support for the pdfcairo terminal.
> >
> > The result being that print uses the pdfcairo terminal, because it  
> > is preferred over an available ghostscript.
> >
> > And I'm back again at my first question: Is there an easy way to  
> > make print.m prefer the ghostscript way?
> > Or do I need to provide a 4.3.0 version of gnuplot without the  
> > cairo terminals?
> >
> > benjamin
>
> You are correct. Thanks for catching my error.
>
> Although others have expressed a preference for the cairo terminals,  
> I have no objection the changing the preferred default to use  
> Ghostscript. There is one feature of the postscript terminal that  
> concerns me. The ghostcript terminal explicitly sets the BBOX to be  
> 50pts inside the edge of the page. This often results in text being  
> clipped with printed.
>
> Perhaps print() should be rewritten to crop ps output at the BBOX?  
> If so a 50pt border added to the pagesize and then clipped by  
> ghostscript. Once that is done, we could also produce eps output by  
> converting a postscript file. This would be nice as gnuplot's eps  
> terminal scales down the size of the fonts.
>
> The only problem with that is we currently don't have ghostscript as  
> a run time dependency. Should that be changed?
>
> In any event, I'm presently not able to build octave, am weary of  
> producing any changesets until I can.
>
> Ben

I opted for a less ambitious solution. The attached changeset allow  
the use to add "-ghostscript" when producing a pdf output.

Is that an acceptable solution?

Ben

changeset.patch
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