Summary: Installation guide for Rubyplot.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Testing
  • Running all tests at once
  • Running specific tests
• Refrences

Introduction

This blog is a guide for Developer installation of Rubyplot and testing including both GR and ImageMagick backends.

Installation

P.S.- Make sure you have installed Ruby and have updated it to the latest version.

Installation steps:

1. Installing GR C Framework: Follow the instructions given [here] but change the command to sudo apt-get install gr (instead of sudo apt-get install python-gr).
   GR will be installed in the path : /usr/gr
2. Create a symbolic link for GR in the path /usr/local/gr using this command:

   sudo ln -s /usr/gr /usr/local/gr
   

3. Clone the Rubyplot repository using this command:

   git clone https://github.com/SciRuby/rubyplot.git
   

4. Change the current directory to Rubyplot folder by using this command:

   cd rubyplot
   

5. Now set the important environment variables by running this command:

   export GRDIR="/usr/local/gr"
   export GKS_FONTPATH="/usr/local/gr"
   export RUBYPLOT_BACKEND="GR"
   

   Alternatively you can set GRDIR and GKS_FONTPATH to the path where GR is installed if it’s different.
   We have set the Rubyplot backend to GR.

6. Replace line 3 and 4 in ext/grruby/extconf.rb by these lines:

   $CFLAGS << ' -I/usr/local/gr/include '
   $LDFLAGS << ' -L/usr/local/gr/lib -lGR -lm -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/gr/lib '
   

   Or change it to the path where GR is present if different.

7. Change lines 13 and 14 in spec/spec_helper.rb to this:

   ENV['GRDIR'] = "/usr/local/gr"
   ENV['GKS_FONTPATH'] = "/usr/local/gr"
   

   Or change it to the path where GR is present if different.

8. Run these commands:

   sudo gem install bundler
   bundle install
   rake compile
   

   GR backend has been setup, now we need to set up the ImageMagick backend.

9. To install ImageMagick and rmagick follow the instructions [here].
10. Now, we have setup both the backends and can change the backends at any time using this command:

    export RUBYPLOT_BACKEND="GR" # For GR backend
    export RUBYPLOT_BACKEND="MAGICK" # For ImageMagick backend
    

Testing

Running all tests at once

To run all the tests at once, run this command in the rubyplot folder:

rspec

Running specific tests

For running specific tests follow these instructions:

1. Make sure you are in the rubyplot folder.
2. Change the backend to desired one by following step 10 of Installation.
3. Tests related to specific plots are present in spec/axes_spec.rb and tests general tests are present in spec/figure_sprc.rb.
4. Append ,focus:true in front of the test(s) which you want to run, for example, the bubble plot tests are:

   context "#bubble!" do
    it "plots a single bubble plot" do
      @figure = Rubyplot::Figure.new
      axes = @figure.add_subplot! 0,0
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [-1, 19, -4, -23], [-35, 21, 23, -4], [4.5, 1.0, 2.1, 0.9]
        p.label = "apples"
        p.color = :blue
      end
      axes.x_range = [-40, 30]
      axes.y_range = [-40, 25]
      axes.title = "simple bubble plot."
    end
   
    it "plots multiple bubble plots on same axes." do 
      @figure = Rubyplot::Figure.new
      axes = @figure.add_subplot! 0,0
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [-1, 19, -4, -23], [-35, 21, 23, -4], [4.5, 1.0, 2.1, 0.9]
        p.label = "apples"
      end
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [20, 30, -6, -3], [-1, 5, -27, -3], [10.3, 10.0, 20.0, 10.0]
        p.label = "peaches"
      end
      axes.title = "simple bubble plot."
    end
   end
   

   Append ,focus:true in front of context "#bubble!" if you want to run every test in the context of bubble plot.
   Or append ,focus:true in front of any test which you want to run, for example, in front of it "plots a single bubble plot".
   An example for appended code is:

   context "#bubble!",focus:true do
    it "plots a single bubble plot",focus:true do
      @figure = Rubyplot::Figure.new
      axes = @figure.add_subplot! 0,0
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [-1, 19, -4, -23], [-35, 21, 23, -4], [4.5, 1.0, 2.1, 0.9]
        p.label = "apples"
        p.color = :blue
      end
      axes.x_range = [-40, 30]
      axes.y_range = [-40, 25]
      axes.title = "simple bubble plot."
    end
   
    it "plots multiple bubble plots on same axes.",focus:true do 
      @figure = Rubyplot::Figure.new
      axes = @figure.add_subplot! 0,0
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [-1, 19, -4, -23], [-35, 21, 23, -4], [4.5, 1.0, 2.1, 0.9]
        p.label = "apples"
      end
      axes.bubble! do |p|
        p.data [20, 30, -6, -3], [-1, 5, -27, -3], [10.3, 10.0, 20.0, 10.0]
        p.label = "peaches"
      end
      axes.title = "simple bubble plot."
    end
   end
   

   Append it in front of all tests which you want to run.

5. Run this command:

   rspec --t=focus`
   

Refrences

1. GRRuby
2. Rubyplot
3. Rmagick
4. GR