[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#598059: octave3.2: axis equal/square incorrect for gnuplot 4.4

[Yann Vernier]

Package: octave3.2
Version: 3.2.4-7
Severity: normal


There is a bug in handling of 2d plots with Octave 3.2 and Gnuplot 4.4.

I found that while axis equal or axis square change the plot, both
on screen and in print, it does not calculate the ratios correctly.
Whatever it is setting seems dependent on the window shape, which really
should never affect the printout.

Forcing __gnuplot_has_feature__("screen_coordinates_for_{lrtb}margin")
to 0 fixes this problem. That variable appears to be intended to handle
some change in gnuplot 4.3, which I am not aware of.
Within __go_draw_axes__ that variable affects not only margin
calculation but disables setting of gnuplot parameters origin and size.
The variable also affects the axis command itself, as dataaspectratio
seems to change format.

"axis equal" and "axis square" should be equivalent to gnuplot "set size
ratio -1" and "set size ratio 1" respectively.

Additionally, there seems to be a developer note about this in
__go_draw_axes__:
      ## FIXME -- nothing should change for gnuplot 4.2.x.
Whoever wrote that probably has a better idea than I what's going on.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.34.1 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages octave3.2 depends on:
ii  libamd2.2.0      1:3.4.0-2               approximate minimum degree orderin
ii  libarpack2       2.1+parpack96.dfsg-3+b1 Fortran77 subroutines to solve lar
ii  libatlas3gf-base 3.8.3-27                Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra
ii  libblas3gf [libb 1.2-7                   Basic Linear Algebra Reference imp
ii  libbz2-1.0       1.0.5-6                 high-quality block-sorting file co
ii  libc6            2.11.2-6                Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcamd2.2.0     1:3.4.0-2               symmetric approximate minimum degr
ii  libccolamd2.7.1  1:3.4.0-2               constrained column approximate lib
ii  libcholmod1.7.1  1:3.4.0-2               sparse Cholesky factorization libr
ii  libcolamd2.7.1   1:3.4.0-2               column approximate minimum degree 
ii  libcurl3-gnutls  7.21.1-1                Multi-protocol file transfer libra
ii  libcxsparse2.2.3 1:3.4.0-2               concise sparse matrix library (com
ii  libfftw3-3       3.2.2-1                 library for computing Fast Fourier
ii  libfltk1.1       1.1.10-2+b1             Fast Light Toolkit - shared librar
ii  libfreetype6     2.4.2-2                 FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libftgl2         2.1.3~rc5-3             library to render text in OpenGL u
ii  libgcc1          1:4.4.4-16              GCC support library
ii  libgfortran3     4.4.4-16                Runtime library for GNU Fortran ap
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx  7.7.1-4                 A free implementation of the OpenG
ii  libglpk0         4.43-1                  linear programming kit with intege
ii  libglu1-mesa [li 7.7.1-4                 The OpenGL utility library (GLU)
ii  libgomp1         4.4.4-16                GCC OpenMP (GOMP) support library
ii  libgraphicsmagic 1.3.12-1+b1             format-independent image processin
ii  libgraphicsmagic 1.3.12-1+b1             format-independent image processin
ii  libhdf5-serial-1 1.8.4-patch1-2          Hierarchical Data Format 5 (HDF5) 
ii  libice6          2:1.0.6-1               X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libjasper1       1.900.1-7+b1            The JasPer JPEG-2000 runtime libra
ii  libjpeg62        6b1-1                   The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  liblapack3gf [li 3.2.2-1                 library of linear algebra routines
ii  liblcms1         1.18.dfsg-1.2+b3        Color management library
ii  libltdl7         2.2.6b-2                A system independent dlopen wrappe
ii  libncurses5      5.7+20100313-3          shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libpcre3         8.02-1.1                Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expressi
ii  libpng12-0       1.2.44-1                PNG library - runtime
ii  libqhull5        2009.1-1                calculate convex hulls and related
ii  libqrupdate1     1.0.1-1                 Fast updates of QR and Cholesky de
ii  libreadline6     6.1-3                   GNU readline and history libraries
ii  libsm6           2:1.1.1-1               X11 Session Management library
ii  libstdc++6       4.4.4-16                The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libtiff4         3.9.4-3                 Tag Image File Format (TIFF) libra
ii  libumfpack5.4.0  1:3.4.0-2               sparse LU factorization library
ii  libwmf0.2-7      0.2.8.4-6.1+b1          Windows metafile conversion librar
ii  libx11-6         2:1.3.3-3               X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6         2:1.1.2-1               X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxml2          2.7.7.dfsg-4            GNOME XML library
ii  octave3.2-common 3.2.4-7                 architecture-independent files for
ii  texinfo          4.13a.dfsg.1-5          Documentation system for on-line i
ii  zlib1g           1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3        compression library - runtime

Versions of packages octave3.2 recommends:
ii  gnuplot                       4.4.0-1    A command-line driven interactive 
ii  libatlas3gf-base              3.8.3-27   Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra

Versions of packages octave3.2 suggests:
ii  octave3.2-doc                 3.2.4-7    PDF documentation on the GNU Octav
ii  octave3.2-emacsen             3.2.4-7    Emacs support for the GNU Octave l
pn  octave3.2-headers             <none>     (no description available)
ii  octave3.2-htmldoc             3.2.4-7    HTML documentation on the GNU Octa
ii  octave3.2-info                3.2.4-7    GNU Info documentation on the GNU 

-- no debconf information