PGXWIN_SERVER(1)

📦 version 5.2.2, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ PGXWIN_SERVER ✨

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the manual page for pgxwin_server — aka the X-window sever for the pgplot plotting subroutine library. yes, it says "sever", we don't make the rules, we just vibe with them 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

pgxwin_server — X-window sever for pgplot plotting subroutine library

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so this manual page is gonna give you the brief rundown on the pgxwin_server command, bestie. it was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program straight up does not have a manual page 😭 iconic of it, honestly.

okay so context: pgplot is a large collection of plotting routines that you can call from C, and also from FORTRAN (and also perl, see below 👀). it ships with lots of drivers that render the plots onto devices. to actually use PGPLOT you must set the environment variable PGPLOT_DIR to "/usr/lib/pgplot". like, that's not optional, that's the law ✨

under csh, you type:

setenv PGPLOT_DIR /usr/lib/pgplot

under bash, you type:

PGPLOT_DIR="/usr/lib/pgplot";export PGPLOT_DIR;

and if you wanna pick which device gets used for the plots by default? that's what the PGPLOT_DEV environment variable is for, bestie 🎀

now the main character: pgxwin_server is the server program for the /xwindow and /xserve devices for pgplot. it gets automatically started by the /xw and /xs driver the first time it's called upon. after that, pgxwin_server keeps serving windows to subsequent PGPLOT programs and just… remains running indefinitely. no cap. it's committed. 🫶

but like, so that it's actually possible to kill the server, an icon window for it gets displayed. window managers generally provide a way to interactively kill windows, and if you do that to the server window, then the server will:

  • close any inactive /xserve windows, and
  • if no active /xw or /xs windows remain, shut itself down cleanly 🧚
⚠️ pro tip for telling them apart: inactive windows are distinguishable from active windows by the appearance of a skull-and-crossbones cursor. 💀 yes really. the vibe check is lethal.

if your default display is correctly set then literally just typing:

pgxwin_server

with no arguments should start the server, and the server icon should appear on the display. slay ✨

if you want an alternate display, you can override the default display with the -display argument. and there are other options to override selected X resources from the command-line too. to see them, type:

pgxwin_server -help

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

  • documentation on the library lives in the directory /usr/share/doc/pgplot
  • there's a perl interface to pgplot called pgperl, also available for Debian
  • extensive documentation can be found at:
http://astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this manual page was written by Gopal Narayanan <gopal@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). 💖

and that's the whole page, bestie — this was the General Commands Manual entry for PGXWIN_SERVER(1), dated Apr 18 2001. go forth and plot, you absolute icon 🌟

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