Re: Precompiled 3.4.0 for Mac lacks gnuplot

[Ben Abbott]

On Jul 17, 2011, at 6:38 PM, Liam Groener wrote:

> 
> On Jul 16, 2011, at 3:17 AM, Ardillas del Monte wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I'm new to Octave, but I've used Matlab and I'd like to try Octave.
>> 
>> I'm on a Mac with 10.6.x, so I downloaded the precompiled 3.4.0 package, 
>> which says that it's ready to run and comes with all necessary stuff.
>> 
>> When mounting the DMG image, I see that both the Documentation and Extras 
>> dirs are empty (zero bytes). I dragged the Octave.app file into my 
>> applications directory.
>> 
>> When I try to plot something, I get the error stating "gnuplot: command not 
>> found".
>> 
>> What do I have to do in order to get 3.4.0 working on my Mac? Must I install 
>> other packages?
> 
> I recommend you just compile octave 3.4.2 with MacPorts as Ben suggested. 
> Once macports itself is installed, just enter the command:
> sudo port install octave-devel +fltk
> in a Terminal window. However, the build will take a long time as there are a 
> number of dependancies to be installed. So, if you want to try out octave 
> first, you can download a pre-built gnuplot binary from:
> http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Math-Scientific/gnuplot.shtml
> If, after installing gnuplot in your Applications folder, the pre-built 
> octave application does not recognize it, add the following line to your 
> .octaverc file:
> gnuplot_binary( '/Applications/gnuplot.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnuplot')
> (An .octaverc file should be in your home folder; if not create one there. 
> You will need an editor that recognizes hidden files, starting with a period, 
> to edit your .octaverc file. If, you don't have one already, I suggest the 
> free TextWrangler; choose "open any file" from the open dialog.) 

Liam,

I followed the mac.softpedia link for gnuplot. I'm only able to find a tar ball 
of the sources.

Is there a binary for gnuplot-4.4 available there (or somewhere else)?

Ben