DESCRIPTION

The C-PLOT distribution is supplied either on magnetic media or via an internet connection. The amount of disk space required for installation varies from computer to computer, but is usually from 1.5 to 2.5 megabytes. The distribution is contained in a tar-format file that contains the same directory hierarchy as the final installation, so you need only choose a place in your file system to locate the C-PLOT files and then extract the distribution into that directory.

C-PLOT expects to find its auxiliary files either in the directory /usr/cplot or /usr/local/cplot. You can locate the C-PLOT files somewhere else, however, and make /usr/cplot or /usr/local/cplot a symbolic link to that location (if symbolic links are available with your version of UNIX), by typing, for example,

ln -s /usr/software/cplot /usr/cplot

Alternatively, you can locate the C-PLOT files anywhere and have each user set the environment variable CPLOTHOME to the installed location.

Once you have decided where to put C-PLOT, make that directory if necessary, change to it, and then extract the contents of the tar tape or disk or the tar file. If distributed on a tape or disk, the distribution media usually has the tar command arguments you need for your system printed on the label.

If extracting from a floppy disk, the disk will contain a compressed tar file of the C-PLOT distribution. If the distribution is provided over the internet, you will receive the compressed tar file directly. Once the file, named either cplot.tar.Z or cplot.tar.gz, is obtained, you need to type the command

zcat cplot.tar.Z | tar xvf -

or

zcat cplot.tar.gz | tar xvf -

You can then remove the cplot.tar.Z or cplot.tar.gz file. (If you don't have zcat available on your system, contact CSS for assistance.)

In order to be able to find the C-PLOT executables, you can make /usr/cplot/bin (or $CPLOTHOME/bin)part of each user's path (or PATH)environment variable One way to do this is by adding

set path=(/usr/cplot/bin $path)

to the .login files if you use /bin/csh or

PATH=/usr/cplot/bin:$PATH

to the .profile files if you use /bin/sh. Alternatively, you can make symbolic links from a standard bin directory (such as /usr/local/bin) to the executables in the C-PLOT directory, for example, by typing:

ln -s /usr/cplot/bin/cplot /usr/local/bin/cplot

ln -s /usr/cplot/bin/newfunc /usr/local/bin/newfunc

The distribution contains a file called cplot_config_. You should rename or copy this file to a file named cplot_config the first time you install C-PLOT. This file contains parameters you may wish to customize for your installation. The parameters are the following:

CFLAGS

Compiler flags for user functions.

CLIBS

Libraries to be linked with user functions.

DEVICE

Default device for pen plotter. Can be given as an argument to the in command.

BAUD

Default baud rate for pen plotter. Can be given as an argument to the in command.

GPIB

Nonzero if pen plotter is on a GPIB interface.

NPTS

Maximum number of in-core points. Additional data points (up to 65,635) are retained in temporary files. (An unlimited numbers of points may be plotted.)

FILTER

Default graphics filter. Can be given as an argument to the zi command.

FILTER1

Same as above.

FILTER2

Default alternate graphics filter.

Edit the file by hand if you want to make changes. Values in a .cplot_init file in a user home directory take precedence over values in the cplot_config file.

C-PLOT looks at the following environment variables:

CPLOTHOME

The location of C-PLOT's auxiliary files. The default value is /usr/cplot.

TERM

The terminal type. Default is vt100.

SHELL

Program to spawn with the u command. The default is /bin/sh.

EDITOR

The editor to start up for user functions. The default is vi.

HOME

The user's home directory. The default is the current directory.

TMPDIR

The path name of a directory to use for C-PLOT's temporary files. The default is /tmp.

CPLOT_DO_DIR

The alternate command file directory. The default is $CPLOTHOME/cmdfiles. The value may be a colon-separated list of directories.

CPLOT_GD_DIR

The alternate data directory. The default is the current directory. The value may be a colon-separated list of directories.

CPLOT_FN_DIR

The user's private function directory. The default is $HOME/functions.

A number of precompiled graphics filters are included in the filters subdirectory. For those that produce output for a printer, you should create a filters/spoolers file as described in the file filter_tools/spoolers. For the simplest case of sending PostScript output to the default printer, create the file filters/spoolers with the contents

psfilter: lpr

You may also wish to compile additional filters from the files in the filter_tools directory. Consult the README file in the filter_tools directory and/or the filtprog C-PLOT online help file for more information. Compiled filters should be moved or copied to the filters directory.

When you have finished installing C-PLOT, you may want to try running some of the demonstration files included with the distribution. Change to the demos directory and examine the README file for instructions. Copies of the demo files are in the first section of the Appendix D of the C-PLOT User Manual.