Libplot(3pm)

💖 NAME 💖

Graphics::Libplot — a Perl extension for the libplot plotting library. bestie, it's a man page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation corner of the world (that's <pink>Libplot(3pm)</pink>, iykyk) and it's about to make your plots iconic ✨

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

use Graphics::Libplot ':All';

that's literally it to get started, no cap 💅

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so. this module lets you make plots by calling the routines in the libplot library, and the libplot library itself comes bundled inside the plotutils package 🫶

there's a wrapper in here for every single published C function. every one. so the section of the plotutils info pages about programming in C is your main reference — go read that, fr fr 📚

there are a few possible confusions tho, and they're noted below 👇

so here's the tea: libplot has three different api's. this perl module gives you an interface to the second one 🌈 it's the same as the most recent api, except that the functions are not re-entrant 💀 the api supported here is described in the section "Older C application programming interfaces" in the libplot manual.

some of the C routines want character constants rather than strings, which is a whole vibe 🙈 when you use the equivalent perl function, you have to wrap that character with the 'ord' function. for instance:

alabel(ord 'c', ord 'c', "some text");

and that will write some centered text. periodt 💖

also important: there is another, unrelated perl-module interface to GNU libplot, and it's called "Graphics::Plotter". don't get them confused bestie, they are not the same 🚫

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👑 EXPORTING FUNCTIONS 👑

none of the libplot functions are exported by default. so if you don't import any functions, you have to prepend the module name to each function 😭

to call the pl_openpl() function you'd say:

Graphics::Libplot::pl_openpl();

however — if you include the library with:

use Graphics::Libplot ':All'

then all of the functions get exported and you do NOT need to prepend the module name 🎉 but be careful in that case, because there are many function names which may collide with others in your program ⚠️ like, watch out.

on the other hand, you can use one of:

use Graphics::Libplot ':INTEGERLOW'
use Graphics::Libplot ':FLOATLOW'

to get just integer or just floating point plotting 🧚

be aware that the interface is still under development 🚧 so more names will be added, and your scripts may need to be changed. it's giving evolving, and honestly we respect the growth 💅

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🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

there are additional examples included in the source distribution! (on Debian systems they live in /usr/share/doc/libgraphics-libplot-perl/examples 📂)

this example draws a spiraling box pattern and it ate, fr:

use Graphics::Libplot ':ALL';

# type of plotting device
$device = 'X';
if (@ARGV) {
   $device = $ARGV[0];
   die "Uknown device: $ARGV[0]" unless $ARGV[0] =~ /^ps|X|fig$/;
}

{   # environment for local variables

 my $SIZE=100;
 my ($i,$f,$s,$sf);
 pl_parampl ("BITMAPSIZE", "700x700");
 $handle = pl_newpl($device, stdin, stdout, stderr); # open xwindow display
 pl_selectpl($handle);
 pl_openpl();
 pl_fspace(-$SIZE,-$SIZE, $SIZE, $SIZE); # specify user coord system
 pl_pencolorname ("blue");
 pl_fontname("HersheySerif");
 $s = 10;
 $f = 10;
 $sf = 1- .0012;
 for($i=1;$i<3000;$i++){
    pl_fscale($sf,$sf);
    pl_fbox(60+$s*sin($i/$f),
         60+$s*sin($i/$f),
         75-$s*cos($i/$f),
         75-$s*cos($i/$f));
    pl_frotate(1);
 }
}
pl_closepl();
pl_selectpl(0);
pl_deletepl($handle);

the die "Uknown device: ..." message is spelled exactly like that in the source, bestie — we keep it verbatim and we do not fix it 🙈

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💀 BUGS 💀

• the newest API is not supported. period.
• there is no test suite with this module, so it is not clear that everything works correctly 😭 like, we're out here trusting the process and it's a little scary ngl

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🌸 AUTHOR 🌸

John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.arizona.edu> wrote this perl interface 🫶

the libplot C library is developed by Robert Maier 👑

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

libplot-perl is copyrighted by John Lapeyre and may be distributed only under the terms of either the Gnu General Public License, or of the perl Artistic License ⚖️ (yes, only those two — read your license bestie)

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• perl(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-08-19, and it served cunt — mwah 💋