GD::Graph::FAQ - Frequently asked questions

You probably had an error somewhere, most likely in the plot() method, and you didn't check for it. See the section on Error Handling in the documentation for GD::Graph to find out how to deal with this sort of thing, and how to get more information about what the error was.

As of version 1.30, GD::Graph automatically corrects the width of the plotting area of a chart if it needs to draw bars (i.e. for bars and some mixed charts). This is necessary, because rounding errors cause irregular gaps between or overlaps of bars if the bar is not an exact integer number of pixels wide.

If you want the old behaviour back, set the correct_with attribute to a false value.

Not necessarily. Check out the GD::Graph::Data class.

You can set the CWaccent_treshold option to a large enough value (larger than your chart). Alternatively, you may like it better to set the CWborderclrs attribute to be the same as the dclrs one.

I'll probably include an option in a future version that gives better control over this.

Ask them. I have asked them, but didn't get an answer. I don't know what to do to get it included in their set of ppms, and I really do not have the time to keep asking them.

I believe that GD::graph has finally made it into ActiveState's ppm archive. However, I am going to leave this question here in case they get behind again.

The distribution has a large set of examples in it. If you don't have the original distribution, please get it from CPAN (http://www.cpan.org/ or some local mirror).

If you send me a patch that (in a decent manner) adds the functionality to the latest version, I may very well add it for the next release. If you don't send me a patch, but just a question, you will have to be patient.

As of version 1.31, export_format in a list context returns all formats that GD can export. If you are only interested in the answer 'gif' or 'png', make sure that you call it in a scalar context.

  $export_format = GD::Graph->export_format;
  $export_format = $graph->export_format;
  print "Export format is ", scalar $graph->export_format, "\n";
  print "Export format is " .  $graph->export_format . "\n";
  @export_formats = $graph->export_format;

When your programs run as CGI, they typically do not have the same environment as when you use them from the command line. The Perl FAQ, section 9, has some information on this. It is also not guaranteed that your script runs from the directory that it is in. It is probably better to include something like:

  use GD::Text;
  GD::Text->font_path("/path/to/my/font_dir");

See the GD::Text documentation for more information about font paths.

Most likely, you are using the font short name, like gdGiantFont or gdMediumBoldFont, and you have not put a CWuse GD in your program. This is needed, because these short names need to be exported into your name space by the GD library:

  use GD;
  # ...
  $graph->set_x_axis_font(gdMediumBoldFont);

If you don't want to include the GD library, you can use the longer alternative names (which is what I'd recommend anyway):

  $graph1->set_x_axis_font(GD::Font->MediumBold);

If you CWuse strict then you will actually get an error message if you try to use the short names without including the GD module.

Also see the GD::Text documentation for this information.

The default number of colours for data sets is seven, so if you use more than seven data sets, those colours will be re-used for the higher data sets.

This is described in the entry for the CWdclrs attribute in the GD::Graph documentation.

Martien Verbruggen <mgjv@tradingpost.com.au>

(c) Martien Verbruggen.

All rights reserved. This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.