Can't send buffer to gnuplot under Windows

[rhstanton]

I just installed gnuplot 4.6 in Windows Vista, and then installed gnuplot-mode. Unfortunately, when I try to send the buffer to gnuplot, only the first line of the buffer seems to get sent (looking at the gnuplot window). I'm using pgnuplot.exe as my executable, but I've also tried gnuplot.exe and this doesn't help.

Note: If I use the latest version of gnuplot-mode.el by Mike McCourt, with the same gnuplot setup, it sends the whole buffer to gnuplot just fine, so the gnuplot setup does work (in theory).

Thanks.

[joddie]

Which version of gnuplot-mode are you using, and how did you install it (e.g., from MELPA or elsewhere?)
Does the same problem happen if you send lines (e.g. by C-c C-v) or regions to gnuplot?

[rhstanton]

From: joddie <notifications@github.commailto:notifications@github.com>
Reply-To: bruceravel/gnuplot-mode <reply@reply.github.commailto:reply@reply.github.com>
Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 3:28 PM
To: bruceravel/gnuplot-mode <gnuplot-mode@noreply.github.commailto:gnuplot-mode@noreply.github.com>
Cc: Richard Stanton <stanton@haas.berkeley.edumailto:stanton@haas.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [gnuplot-mode] Can't send buffer to gnuplot under Windows (#15)

Which version of gnuplot-mode are you using, and how did you install it (e.g., from MELPA or elsewhere?)
Does the same problem happen if you send lines (e.g. by C-c C-v) or regions to gnuplot?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/15#issuecomment-11510582.

I've installed gnuplot 20121127.1316 using package-list-packages and selecting gnuplot. When I open a gnuplot script file, it announces itself as

Gnuplot-mode 0.6.1 (gnuplot 3.7)

Send region has the same problem – only the first line appears in the gnuplot window, and Emacs hangs until I press C-g

Send line using C-v works in part – the line does appear after the prompt in the gnu plot window, but again Emacs then hangs with a spinning circle cursor until I press C-g.

It looks like the problem might have something to do with not getting proper confirmation that the first line was sent properly.

[joddie]

Hmm. I don't have access to a Windows machine right now to debug this, unfortunately. As far as I know gnuplot.el doesn't do anything special to check whether a line has been received.

What do you get as a backtrace if you do toggle-debug-on-quit, try to send something and then hit C-g?

[rhstanton]

Hmm. I don't have access to a Windows machine right now to debug this, unfortunately. As far as I know
gnuplot.el doesn't do anything special to check whether a line has been received.
What do you get as a backtrace if you do toggle-debug-on-quit, try to send something and then hit C-g?

Here's what I get when I try to send a few lines using C-c C-r:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (quit)
accept-process-output(#)
comint-send-input()
gnuplot-send-string-to-gnuplot("set xlabel "Stock price"\nset ylabel "Payoff"\nset key off\n" region)
gnuplot-send-region-to-gnuplot(115 172)
call-interactively(gnuplot-send-region-to-gnuplot nil nil)

[rhstanton]

From: Richard Stanton
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 3:40 PM
To: bruceravel/gnuplot-mode
Subject: Re: [gnuplot-mode] Can't send buffer to gnuplot under Windows (#15)

I've installed gnuplot 20121127.1316 using package-list-packages and selecting gnuplot. When I open a gnuplot script file, it announces itself as  

Gnuplot-mode 0.6.1 (gnuplot 3.7)

---

That's odd all by itself. The version of gnuplot actually installed is 4.6. On my Mac, the gnuplot version is reported correctly.

[joddie]

That is interesting. Gnuplot-mode tries to call gnuplot when first loaded to find the version information, and defaults to guessing version 3.7 if it can't do this.

If you don't mind a bit more debugging, could you try inserting the following in a scratch buffer and evaluating it? It should pop up a buffer with Gnuplot's splash message.

(with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create "*gnuplot test*")
  (erase-buffer)
  (insert "show version")
  (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) gnuplot-program t (current-buffer))
  (pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)))

There must be something funny going on with the way Emacs communicates with gnuplot, but I don't know what it could be. Maybe I should look at the other gnuplot mode and see how they do it...

[rhstanton]

I get a blank buffer when I try what you suggest… I agree it’s something to do with the way Emacs talks to gnuplot, but I don‘t know what. I’ve tried both the pgnuplot.exe and gnuplot.exe executables that come with the Windows version of gnuplot 4.6, and neither works.

From: joddie [mailto:notifications@github.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2012 4:38 PM
To: bruceravel/gnuplot-mode
Cc: Richard Stanton
Subject: Re: [gnuplot-mode] Can't send buffer to gnuplot under Windows (#15)

That is interesting. Gnuplot-mode tries to call gnuplot when first loaded to find the version information, and defaults to guessing version 3.7 if it can't do this.

If you don't mind a bit more debugging, could you try inserting the following in a scratch buffer and evaluating it? It should pop up a buffer with Gnuplot's splash message.

(with-current-buffer (get-buffer-create "gnuplot test")

(erase-buffer)

(insert "show version")

(call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) gnuplot-program t (current-buffer))

(pop-to-buffer (current-buffer)))

There must be something funny going on with the way Emacs communicates with gnuplot, but I don't know what it could be. Maybe I should look at the other gnuplot mode and see how they do it...

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/15#issuecomment-11512530.

[joddie]

Thanks for the bug report and for trying the suggestion. For now I'm not sure what the problem is, sorry. I'll try to debug a bit more when I have access to a Windows machine again (not until the new year, unfortunately).

[joddie]

I had a glance at Mike McCourt's gnuplot-mode, and I see that it doesn't run gnuplot as an interactive process, but starts a new process from scratch each time you send it a file as input. So that probably explains why it doesn't suffer from this problem.

If you don't mind running one more test, what happens when you evaluate the following in a scratch buffer? It should give you an Emacs window with an interactive gnuplot inside it. If that doesn't work, then I'm really not sure how to fix this.

(pop-to-buffer
 (make-comint-in-buffer
  "gnuplot"
  (get-buffer-create "*gnuplot shell*")
  gnuplot-program))

One more question. What is the difference between gnuplot.exe and pgnuplot.exe in current Windows distributions? I gather from the discussion at http://gnuplot.10905.n7.nabble.com/names-of-gnuplot-Win32-binaries-td11759.html that there are some differences in how they deal with the console, so this problem probably relates to that in some way.

[rhstanton]

No rush – I can always use my Mac. I’m very happy to help in any way with debugging/testing.

From: joddie [mailto:notifications@github.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 10:28 AM
To: bruceravel/gnuplot-mode
Cc: Richard Stanton
Subject: Re: [gnuplot-mode] Can't send buffer to gnuplot under Windows (#15)

Thanks for the bug report and for trying the suggestion. For now I'm not sure what the problem is, sorry. I'll try to debug a bit more when I have access to a Windows machine again (not until the new year, unfortunately).

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/15#issuecomment-11584809.

[rhstanton]

If you don't mind running one more test, what happens when you evaluate the following in a scratch buffer? It should give you an Emacs window with an interactive gnuplot inside it. If that doesn't work, then I'm really not sure how to fix this.
(pop-to-buffer
(make-comint-in-buffer
"gnuplot"
(get-buffer-create "gnuplot shell")
gnuplot-program))

---

I tried this three times. The first two, the gnuplot shell buffer displayed the message

Timeout: gnuplot is not ready

Process gnuplot exited abnormally with code 1

The third time, the buffer displayed nothing at all. In each case, however, a (separate, GUI, non-Emacs) gnuplot window opened outside Emacs.

After the third time, I tried typing in the gnuplot shell window. When I entered a line and typed return, the command was successfully executed by (and appeared in) one of the (non-Emacs) gnuplot windows, but besides my own typing, no text ever appeared in the gnuplot shell buffer.

Is the code by any chance waiting for some sort of prompt to appear in the buffer?

---

One more question. What is the difference between gnuplot.exe and pgnuplot.exe in current Windows distributions? I gather from the discussion at http://gnuplot.10905.n7.nabble.com/names-of-gnuplot-Win32-binaries-td11759.html that there are some differences in how they deal with the console, so this problem probably relates to that in some way.

---

I'm not sure about this either. The experiment above was using pgnuplot.exe Using gnuplot.exe instead, although a gnuplot.exe process is visible in the task manager, nothing appears in the Emacs buffer (again), unlike pgnuplot, no separate Windows window appears, and again unlike pgnuplot, nothing at first (seemed to) happen when I typed "plot sin(x)". However, then I tried

set term windows
plot sin(x)

and this time it worked.

So it appears that both pgnuplot.exe and gnuplot.exe could, in principle, be made to work, as long as you don't mind none of the output ever appearing in the Emacs buffer.

[dbc60]

This is an interesting topic. I ran into the same problem. I hope you can look at it soon.

Regards,
Doug Cuthbertson

[Harry79]

I have the same issue.
I tried what you suggested:
(pop-to-buffer
(make-comint-in-buffer
"gnuplot"
(get-buffer-create "gnuplot shell")
gnuplot-program))

The gnuplot shell opens and I can type in commands: e.g. plot sin(x). As soon as I hit enter emacs hangs and I can only recover by C-g.

[Harry79]

Btw. this is the call stack I get:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (quit)
accept-process-output(# process gnuplot)
comint-send-input()
call-interactively(comint-send-input nil nil)

the # (smaller sign) process gnuplot (bigger sign) seems to me a bit strange, should this be a pid?

[Harry79]

I solved the problem, at least partially. By setting:
'(gnuplot-program "pgnuplot")
see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-emacs-windows/2010-09/msg00003.html
A window opens and displays the plot result, however the accept-process-output call still blocks and I need to press C-g to continue working with emacs.