problem with libplot 4.0 / ghostscript 6.52 ?

[R.J.GLEDHILL]

Hi there!


I've written a (fairly simple) C program that uses the libplot library
to draw graphs.  The output consists of a series of lines and boxes with
textual labels.  There seems to be a problem related to the postscript
fonts in Redhat 7.3.  Basically, the program has been tried on two types
of system:  Redhat 7.3 and Mandrake 7.2.



Under MND7.2:

X11 output is fine; all drawing and fonts render correctly

Postscript output sent to the printer (an HP Laserjet 2100M) is printed
correctly.

Ghostview renders the postscript output correctly on-screen: no errors
are generated.




Under RH7.3:

X11 output is fine; all drawing and fonts render correctly. 

Postscript output sent to the printer is printed correctly for hershey
and postscript fonts.

Ghostview renders the graphical (lines/squares) parts of the postscript
output correctly, but stops with a ghostscript error message when
postscript fonts are used in the output.  For instance, telling libplot
to render with 'HersheySerif' works fine, but 'Times-Roman' results in
gv stopping with:



Error: /rangecheck in --get--
Operand stack:
   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   descender   0
--nostringval--   1
Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--
--nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--
--nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1   3   %oparray_pop   1
3   %oparray_pop   1   3   %oparray_pop   1   3   %oparray_pop
.runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2
%stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--
--nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1034/1476(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:84/200(L)--
--dict:39/50(L)--   --dict:2/17(L)--   --dict:5/17(L)--
--dict:1/3(L)--   --dict:14/17(ro)(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Current file position is 13862
GNU Ghostscript 6.52: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1





I know very little about postscript.  Is this likely to be a problem
with libplot, or ghostscript, or the way Redhat have set either of them
up?  If it is likely to be a problem with my own code, how should I
start looking for it?


Any help at all would be very much appreciated!



Robert Gledhill
Chemistry Department, University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton, UK





Versions of software/libraries are as follows:

redhat 7.3, gv 3.5.8, ghostscript 6.52, ghostscript-fonts 5.50
mandrake 7.2, gv 3.5.8, ghostscript 5.50, ghostscript-fonts 5.50


libplot: [same version installed on both machines]; following string
taken from the top of the NEWS file at the top of the unpacked package
tree:

Version 2.4 released, 6/2000.  [Includes libplot 4.0, interface age=2.]