Re: [matplotlib-devel] 0.98.5 - Doc building question on matplotlibrc

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Sandro Tosi <mat...@gm...> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 17:07, Darren Dale <dsd...@gm...> wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 8:12 AM, Sandro Tosi <mo...@de...> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >> while preparing the debian package update for 0.98.5 I went thru a
> >> problem: we remove doc/mpl_data/matplotlibrc because it will be
> >> modified (to change backend (that now is set to MacOSX in the tarball
> >> distributed..?)) and up to now it wasn't used.
> >>
> >> Now, doc/make.py fails because of
> >>
> >>  shutil.copy('mpl_data/matplotlibrc', '_static/matplotlibrc')
> >>
> >> So, can we use another 'matplotlibrc' file or the one in doc/mpl_data
> >> has something specific to doc and needs to maintained?
> >
> > The default matplotlibrc file in mpl-data/ is created by setup.py during
> the
> > build process. The default backend is selected according to which gui
> > toolkits are available, and defaults to Agg if no supported toolkit is
> > available. setup.py only selects the macosx backend if the build is being
> > performed on a macosx system. The source tarball is apparently prepared
> on a
> > Mac, but I dont think it matters that the source dist contains this
> > platform-specific backend, since the file will be overwritten with more
> > appropriate settings anyway when you run setup.py build.
> >
> > It would really be best to not remove the file that is created as a
> result
> > of running setup.py build. The mpl documentation suggests users to copy
> this
> > file into their ~/.matplotlib/ or wherever if they want to modify the
> > default properties, and it contains some documentation for each of the
> > settings.
> >
> > On the other hand, if you are running setup.py build and the resulting
> > matplotlibrc file still says the default backend is macosx, and you are
> not
> > running macosx, and you have configured setup.cfg to set some other
> default
> > backend, then it is a bug that needs to be fixed.
>
> Well, what I'm actually asking is: can I use any matplotlibrc file (be
> it from any location in the tarball or forged during build process) or
> the one in doc/mpl_data has something specific to documentation that
> needs to be preserved.
>
> Don't worry, we ship matplotlibrc file (the one built), but I need to
> know if that particular one has something ad-hoc for doc.
>

The rc file in mpl_data does get pulled into the the docs, you can see the
result at http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/users/customizing.html. But it
does not have to be preserved, like I said, it gets overwritten when you run
setup.py build, with new settings depending on what setup.py determines are
the most appropriate and what settings you insist on having by editing
setup.cfg.