Re: ANN: PLplot plotting library with Ada bindings

[Jerry <lanceboyle@qwest.net>]

On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 8:27:37 AM UTC-7, Graham Stark wrote:
> Hi Jerry,
> 
> That looks really interesting.
> 
> I'm looking for a plotter routine that could be used safely inside the AWS web server, so I can implement a 'callback' chart server (currently I have one written in Java). 
> 
> Could this be used for that? Some simple tests suggest to me that it isn't thread safe. The  Initialize_PLplot and associated procedures to set filenames, etc, seem to set global variables somewhere. Is there some trick I'm missing?
> 
> It does make lovely looking charts.
> 
> thanks very much for this.
> 
> Graham

Hi Graham,

Here's another comment from a PLplot developer:

======
Andrew
======

I'd concur with what Hez said, however there is one further source of thread problems - namely a number of the language bindings use globals to work round passing things like function pointers between languages. This would also need checking.

This would be a useful, but substantive job.

In terms of security we try to follow best practice in terms of checking buffer lengths, avoiding insecure library calls etc to avoid the obvious problems. Newer versions of gcc / gnu ld are getting better at flagging some of these. There is certainly no systematic attempt to harden plplot or fully check it for potential security issues.