PGPLOT module install on win32

kesterkester has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greeetings O Monks,

Starting a new job, I've moved from unix to win32 (and ActiveState Perl) for my work machine. Most of my Perl scripts have made the migration without trouble, but I'm having the damnedest time installing the PGPLOT module (for use with PDL, for what it's worth).

Here's what I've tried:
ppm3 install PGPLOT, this results in Error: Package 'PGPLOT' not found. Please 'search' for it first.
cpan install PGPLOT gives an error that ExtUtils::F77 is not installed; but I can't seem to install ExtUtils::F77 (the make fails).
I followed the directions at http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/pdl-porters/2000-07/msg00000.html, but I get the following:

C:\pgplot>ppm install --location PGPLOT
Unknown option: location
Error: no suitable installation target found for package PGPLOT.

C:\pgplot>ppm install PGPLOT
Error: no suitable installation target found for package PGPLOT.

C:\pgplot>ppm install PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT
Searching for 'PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT' returned no results. Try a broad
+er search
first.
[download]

Has anyone done this? Can anyone point me in the correct direction?

Much thanks,

Kester

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Re: PGPLOT module install on win32 by tachyon (Chancellor) on Aug 26, 2004 at 02:24 UTC
PGPLOT is a Fortran 77 graphics library (thus the F77). There is then a Perl XS (C) wrapper on top of that to let you get at it from Perl. Sounds complex? Correct. Here is the home page of the library http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/ To get it to work you will either need to find a precompiled PPM version somewhere on the web, or compile it yourself. Compiling it yourself will not be trivial. You are going to need a Fortran77 compiler and MSVC++. See A Guide To Installing Modules and A Practical Guide to Compiling C based Modules under ActiveState using Microsoft C++ as a first step, then Google for how to compile the underlying Fortran library on Win32. Good luck. PodMaster takes requests for his repository. He may like to give it a bash. cheers tachyon	[reply]
Re^2: PGPLOT module install on win32 by kesterkester (Hermit) on Aug 26, 2004 at 03:51 UTC
As always, an awesome post. Thanks much. I'm game for a challenge, so I'll give compiling it a shot; off to find a win32 f77 compiler....	[reply]
Re^3: PGPLOT module install on win32 by Anonymous Monk on Aug 02, 2005 at 18:32 UTC
So what happened? I've been banging my head on this for several days... I have Visual C++ .net (standard) installed, didn't help...	[reply]