Plotchar(3NCARG)

✨ Plotchar 💖 (that's Plotchar(3NCARG), from the NCAR GRAPHICS girlies)

🌸 NAME 🌸

Plotchar — bestie, this is your whole glow-up kit for drawing characters at high, medium, or low quality. Pick your vibe, we got you. 💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

PCHIQU (or PLCHHQ) — high quality, main character energy 👑

Draws high quality characters. By default it pulls from the same database as the old NCAR Graphics routine PWRITX, but it can also use characters from any of the fontcap-defined databases. On top of that it's got an improved interface and many more capabilities than PWRITX. Lowkey a whole upgrade. 💖

PCMEQU (or PLCHMQ) — medium quality, the dependable one 🌸

Draws characters of "medium quality". How? By drawing lines, exactly like PCHIQU does, except it doesn't produce quite such fancy characters. Heads up: no function codes may be used. Also, using PCMEQU to draw a given string of characters will create a larger metafile than if PCLOQU were used — which may be a disadvantage, ngl. But plot twist: it may also be more dependable, because it doesn't depend on capabilities the translator may or may not have. Trade-offs, bestie. 🦋

PCLOQU (or PLCHLQ) — low quality, tiny metafile 🧚

Draws characters of "low quality" by calling the GKS character-drawing routines. And yes: no function codes may be used. Using PCLOQU to draw a given string of characters will create a smaller metafile than if PCHIQU or PCMEQU were used; the results will depend on capabilities of the translator. It's giving "trust the translator". 😭

The getters and setters 🎀

• PCGETC — Retrieves the character value of a specified internal parameter.
• PCGETI — Retrieves the integer value of a specified internal parameter.
• PCGETR — Retrieves the real value of a specified internal parameter.
• PCRSET — Resets the values of all internal parameters to the default state.
• PCSETC — Gives a new character value to a specified internal parameter.
• PCSETI — Gives a new integer value to a specified internal parameter.
• PCSETR — Gives a new real value to a specified internal parameter.

PCPNWI 🌟

A function of type CHARACTER*16 that, given the name of an internal parameter array and an index, has as its value the name of the specified element of the internal parameter array.

PCDLSC 🌈

Defines the default list of "special colors" used by PCHIQU in drawing certain characters from the filled fonts. Such a call will define color indices IFCI, IFCI+1, IFCI+2, . . . , IFCI+15, and it will set all elements of the internal parameter array ´CC´ corresponding to indices 1 through 16.

Okay but here's the tea: at the moment, although such a call does define a set of sixteen colors (ranging from blue to red) and set the elements of ´CC´, it´s a bit pointless, since there are no characters for which the special colors are used. In the future, there will be a few such (like the state highway symbol, which is normally drawn in a particular pair of colors); at that time, the routine will be of more use. So like… bookmark it for later. 💀

Alternate names 💜

• PLCHHQ — An alternate name for the routine PCHIQU.
• PLCHMQ — An alternate name for the routine PCMEQU.
• PLCHLQ — An alternate name for the routine PCLOQU.

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🔥 C-BINDING SYNOPSIS 🔥

#include <ncarg/ncargC.h>

c_pchiqu
c_pcmequ
c_pcloqu
c_pcgetc
c_pcgeti
c_pcgetr
c_pcrset
c_pcsetc
c_pcseti
c_pcsetr
c_pcpnwi
c_pcdlsc
c_plchhq
c_plchmq
c_plchlq

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💅 USER-MODIFIABLE INTERNAL ROUTINES 💅

• PCMPXY — This routine is normally not called directly by the user (though it can be). It is called by PCHIQU and by PCMEQU when the user has set the mapping flag ´MA´ nonzero to request mapping of characters from one X/Y coordinate system to another.

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👑 ACCESS 👑

To use Plotchar routines, load the NCAR Graphics libraries ncarg, ncarg_gks, and ncarg_c, preferably in that order. Order matters, bestie, don't skip the queue. 🫶

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🚨 MESSAGES 🚨

Various error conditions can occur in Plotchar. Each of these results in a call to the error-handling routine SETER, with a final argument indicating that the error is recoverable; by default, an error message is printed and execution is terminated, but, if you turn on error recovery (as described in the "man" page for "error_handling"), you can get control back. So like, you can survive this. 🙈

The error messages are as follows; all should be more or less self-explanatory.

PCDLSC - FIRST COLOR INDEX IS LESS THAN ZERO
PCDLSC - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCGETC - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCGETC - UNRECOGNIZED PARAMETER NAME
PCGETI - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCGETR - BOX COLOR ARRAY INDEX IS OUT OF RANGE
PCGETR - COLOR ARRAY INDEX IS OUT OF RANGE
PCGETR - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCGETR - UNRECOGNIZED PARAMETER NAME
PCHIQU - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCLOQU - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCMEQU - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCPNWI - INTERNAL ERROR - SEE CONSULTANT
PCPNWI - PARAMETER NAME TOO SHORT
PCSETC - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCSETC - UNRECOGNIZED FONT NAME
PCSETC - UNRECOGNIZED PARAMETER NAME
PCSETI - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCSETR - BOX COLOR ARRAY INDEX IS OUT OF RANGE
PCSETR - COLOR ARRAY INDEX IS OUT OF RANGE
PCSETR - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PCSETR - UNRECOGNIZED PARAMETER NAME
PLCHHQ - DATASET NOT LOADED CORRECTLY
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQCNTN
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQFACI
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQFAIS
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQLWSC
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQNT
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQPLCI
PLCHHQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQTXCI
PLCHHQ - INTERNAL LOGIC ERROR (NCRA TOO BIG) - SEE CONSULTANT
PLCHHQ - INTERNAL LOGIC ERROR (NDGU = 0) - SEE CONSULTANT
PLCHHQ - INTERNAL LOGIC ERROR (NPCS TOO BIG) - SEE CONSULTANT
PLCHHQ - INTERNAL LOGIC ERROR (XCP1 OR XCP2 = OORV) - SEE
CONSULTANT
PLCHHQ - INTERNAL LOGIC ERROR (XCRA/YCRA TOO SMALL) - SEE
CONSULTANT
PLCHHQ - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQCHH
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQCHUP
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQCNTN
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQNT
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQTXAL
PLCHLQ - ERROR EXIT FROM GQTXP
PLCHLQ - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR
PLCHMQ - UNCLEARED PRIOR ERROR

Not the SEE CONSULTANT ones though. Those ones are giving "go talk to a human". 😭

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Online: plotchar_params, pcdlsc, pcgetc, pcgeti, pcgetr, pchiqu, pcloqu, pcmequ, pcmpxy, pcpnwi, pcrset, pcsetc, pcseti, pcsetr, ncarg_cbind.

Hardcopy: NCAR Graphics Fundamentals, UNIX Version

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🌟 COPYRIGHT 🌟

Copyright (C) 1987-2009 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research The use of this Software is governed by a License Agreement.

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okay that's the whole thing, you ate that fr fr 💖✨

Signing off from the UNIX era — this page is dated March 1993, filed under Plotchar(3NCARG). Vintage, iconic, no cap. 🎀🦋💅