Known problems of iGMT version 1.0

Please note: iGMT version 1.1 is the most recent release.

Known problems of iGMT version 1.0

We like to thank the iGMT users for pointing out the problems below and sometimes offering fixes at the same time! Your input is greatly appreciated especially since we do not have the resources of testing every platform and every single variation of what might go wrong.

So far, only particular system setups result in slight problems that are easily resolved by applying the patches below. Since these changes are small, we have included patches for problems 2 and 3 in recent versions of the igmt_v1.0.tar file.

  1. iGMT korn shell scripts try to call the korn shell using the standard UNIX path "/bin/ksh". Some systems such as SUSE and redhat LINUX have korn shell in a different place such as "/usr/bin/ksh" or not at all installed (J. Oravetz)

    Fix: Change the references to the path ksh resides or use a call to bash, which is usually installed on LINUX systems. To do this:

    Change every reference to /bin/ksh such as in the first line of the igmt_helper_* scripts ("#!/bin/ksh") to /usr/bin/ksh ("#!/usr/bin/ksh"). Furthermore, change the "shell_to_use" variable in line 69 of igmt_configure.tcl.

    If you want to do change path references automatically, try this script we have provided or the elegant perl one-liner

    perl -i -p -e s'+/bin/ksh+/bin/bash+g' *
    which of course changes every call of ksh to the bash shell. The second approach was provided by E. W. Lisse.

  2. iGMT does set the internal $user variable incorrectly (or not all) for shells that don't have $USER defined and whose id command does not support "id -un" (D. Müller)

    Fix: Change "$env(USER)" in line 49 in igmt_configure.tcl to "$env(LOGNAME)" if your systems setup has $LOGNAME defined. Otherwise, define an environment variable and replace "USER" with "NAME_OF_YOUR_VARIABLE". We have changed the procedure for version 1.1 and igmt_configure looks automatically for $env(USER) and $env(LOGNAME) now.

  3. iGMT had a non-standard internal menue structure for polygon symbols. This apparently causes problems on some particular Tcl/Tk installations (Th. Kuehnel).

    Fix: Can be fixed by renaming the sub-menues in igmt_menus.tcl. If you experience problems with the symbol selection for polygons, replace the igmt_menus.tcl file of your distribution with this modified version of igmt_menus.tcl. Fixed in iGMT version 1.1.

  4. iGMT uses the Tcl "exec" command to use the shell command "which" to determine if software is installed during start-up. This can cause problems on AIX systems when ksh is used by default and the user's .cshrc is not set up correctly (Doug S. Phillips).

    Fix: Change the "which" in line 66 of igmt.tcl to "type" if your system operates with ksh only. Fixed in iGMT 1.1.

  5. "Show man page" does nothing because the man command does not accept the "-c" option.

    Fix: Remove the "-c" in line 35 of igmt_helper_create_man_page. Fixed in iGMT 1.1.

  6. When you terminate iGMT using CTRL-C or some X-windows "killer", the temporary files won't be removed.

    Fix: Create a second sh-script ("my_tidy_igmt") which contains the trap command and a call to the main igmt startup script:

    	#!/bin/sh
    	trap "/bin/rm -f /tmp/igmt_$USER* " 0 1 2 15
    	./igmt
    	

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