Bugs in Version 2 Alpha of DsTool

As mentioned on the web page DsTool at the Geometry Center, DsTool 2.0 alpha may well be shortly superceded. However if you are using or considering the use of Version 2.0, the following may be of assistance.

Thanks to James Heald and John Stimson among others for comments relevant to some of these issues.

RedHat 6.1 Compatibility

Some Easy but Important Bugs to Fix

Complete Filename Problem

Especially in the Linux case (e.g Slackware 3+, Redhat 4) the function filename_completion in complete.c runs into compilation difficulty because of a reference to a structure anmed "d_namlen". This can likely be fixed by adding the line #define HAS_DIRENT_H to the #ifdef LINUX part of src/include/portability.h.

complete.c: In function `filename_completion':
complete.c:109: structure has no member named `d_namlen'
complete.c: In function `file_name_completion_stat':
complete.c:216: structure has no member named `d_namlen'
make[1]: *** [complete.o] Error 1

Another Approach to the Complete Filename Problem

The routine complete_filename appears in only four places, and may be commented out without large loss of functionality. (File dialogs will no longer recognize abbreviations like tildes for one's home directory, etc.) The four locations are src/windows/load/load_hnd.c, src/windows/save/save_hnd.c, src/twoD/print_hnd.c, and src/twoD/complete_name.c.

Crashes using the Multiple Orbits Panel

The declaration in the routine mult_data_refresh in the file src/windows/mult/mult.c should be changed to

char        strng[40]; 

instead of

char        strng[20]; 

User DsTool Makefile Problem on SGI's

Because of SGI's aversion to empty macros. This shows up primarily before one has added any user models of one's own. The Makefile contains documentation on what to do if one wants to compile a user DsTool without adding new models.

Alpha Release Aspects

The Auto Panel

was written for an older release of AUTO (and of DsTool) and does not work.

The Locbif Panel

code used what was documented as Sun specific FORTRAN and should not be expected to work straightforwardly as is on other platforms.

The Geomview Panel

writes data in Geomview command file format. So if the data is saved to filename, it can be viewed by geomview -c filename. DsTool can also be installed as a geomview module.

The Tcl Support

was for Release 7.3 and is unlikely to work unchanged in other releases.

Reminders

DSTOOL, OPENWINHOME, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH

are essential environment variables for successful compilation and running. (An unset DSTOOL at runtime will usually result in difficulty finding the color tables for view windows.)

Installation scripts

are intended to be run form a csh, not a bash.

Platforms other than Suns

require a version of the xview libraries that works on your platform. Recently, this has been straightforward for linux and some versions of Irix. Earlier, it seemed to be possible on some versions of HP, RS-6000, and pre-alpha DEC workstations.

In the event of Difficulty

most people will want to say NO to FORTRAN and to tcl.

DsTool Makefiles

make essential use of included files from the directory $DSTOOL/site_specific. For instance a common need is to add a suitable -L entry to WINLDFLAGS in the file lib_incl.mk there, so that the X11 libraries will be found at link time.

Compilation and Installation

after a problem in the installation script can often be completed by

		cd $DSTOOL/src
		make dstool
		make dslibs

but if problems are resistant, a fresh distribution may help.