Home > Archive > PERL Beginners > July 2007 > Module Madness (must I install all these modules and libraries to get a graph?)
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| Author |
Module Madness (must I install all these modules and libraries to get a graph?)
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| Inventor 2007-07-26, 3:59 am |
| Hi, and thanks for all your help so far. My program is running
beautifully now, and I would like to add some data graphs. I read
about GD::Graph, which tells me I need GD::Text::Align, which I learn
is actually in GD::Text, plus the plain old GD. Then when I read the
README in GD, it tells me that Mac OS X users must install some subset
of seven additional items for GD to work, all from different web
sites. Here is that list:
2. Make sure you have downloaded and installed the following
packages:
a. Perl 5.6.0 or higher:
http://www.perl.com/
b. The gd graphics library:
http://www.boutell.com/gd/
c. The PNG graphics library:
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
d. The zlib compression library:
http://www.gzip.org/zlib/
(OPTIONAL)
e. The FreeType font rendering library for TrueType fonts:
http://www.freetype.org/
f. The JPEG library, version 6b or later:
ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/
g. The XPM library, a standard part of modern X Windows
distributions. If you don't have a modern
version of X, don't try to get XPM working.
Must I really install the 3 modules plus the libraries b, c, d, and f
above just to draw a simple jpg scatter plot? I don't even know how
to install a library, just a module. When they say "library" in the
README, do they really mean "module"?
The same goes for most of the other tantalizing modules I've been
reading about and wanting to install... It needs THIS, which needs
THIS and THIS, one of which needs THESE... I am so  .
Worse yet, godaddy.com, where i plan to host the site, tells me that
they only support the standard Perl modules that come with Perl these
days, so I will have to install them locally and keep them in some
sort of directory tree, I guess.
I wouldn't bother you with the question, but its been hounding me for
some time now. Help, please. Thanks in advance.
Inventor
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| Inventor 2007-07-26, 6:59 pm |
| On Jul 26, 8:26 am, shawnhco...@magma.ca (Mr. Shawn H. Corey) wrote:
>
> Welcome to Dependency Hell. (You know you're in trouble when there is a derogatory nickname for what you're doing.)
>
You know what, rather than deal with Dependency Hell in multiple
environments, this morning I wrote my own plotting routine that does
ASCII scatter plots. You just give it a data set and it makes a nice
cute little ascii plot for you, no dependencies, no Hell, and it's
good enough for me. You don't think the CPAN folks would want such a
module, do you?
Inventor
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| Paul Johnson 2007-07-26, 6:59 pm |
| On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 09:40:36AM -0700, Inventor wrote:
> On Jul 26, 8:26 am, shawnhco...@magma.ca (Mr. Shawn H. Corey) wrote:
>
> You know what, rather than deal with Dependency Hell in multiple
> environments, this morning I wrote my own plotting routine that does
> ASCII scatter plots. You just give it a data set and it makes a nice
> cute little ascii plot for you, no dependencies, no Hell, and it's
> good enough for me. You don't think the CPAN folks would want such a
> module, do you?
Of course they would. CPAN folks are just us, and if your module is
somehow better than anything else out there then it belongs on CPAN.
Your other option would have been to let either CPAN or CPANPLUS manage
the dependencies. It's quite easy when you know how.
$ perldoc CPAN
--
Paul Johnson - paul@pjcj.net
http://www.pjcj.net
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| Inventor 2007-07-27, 6:59 pm |
| On Jul 26, 5:24 pm, p...@pjcj.net (Paul Johnson) wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 09:40:36AM -0700, Inventor wrote:
>
>
>
> Of course they would. CPAN folks are just us, and if your module is
> somehow better than anything else out there then it belongs on CPAN.
>
> Your other option would have been to let either CPAN or CPANPLUS manage
> the dependencies. It's quite easy when you know how.
>
> $ perldoc CPAN
>
> --
> Paul Johnson - p...@pjcj.nethttp://www.pjcj.net
Well, it turned out to be a nifty little module. I set up all the
variables with defaults for size and the like, so all anyone has to do
to use it is pass a reference to an array of (x,y) pairs and poof!
They get an ASCII scatter plot. Its about as easy as any plotting
module could be and no Dependency Hell, so yeah, I guess its worth
submitting. The submission FAQ says they want a makefile with it so I
guess I'll go read up on that.
Oh, and when I ran CPAN on my system and told it to install something,
it said "LWP not available" and kept going to other sites looking for
some module, always ending with "LWP not available". Maybe I would
have to manually install the LWP module and then CPAN would work for
me.
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