server

Audience: Software wishing to use Autoplot from other software packages.

Purpose: Outline the server interface

Introduction

Autoplot has a "server" mode where it is able to accept commands from a socket, and possibly send back graphics. The interface is just a Jython command line similar to that on the console tab, except that "telnet" can be used to connect. Similarly, IDL can be used to connect to have Autoplot render data.

First Look

The server mode must first be enabled. Connections are only allowed from the local machine, but there are clearly still security risks in opening up a port which can accept commands. If Autoplot is already running, then the server can be started with [menubar]→Options→"Enable Feature"→Server, then use 12345 for the port and hit OK. Now use telnet to experiment with the interface. For example:

spot5> telnet localhost 12345
Trying ::1...
Connected to localhost.
autoplot> plot( [1,2,3,4,5], title="My Data" )
autoplot> plot( '`<http://autoplot.org/data/autoplot.cdf?Magnitude>`' )

The external software might format data then tell Autoplot to plot the data. For example, https://sourceforge.net/p/autoplot/code/HEAD/tree/autoplot/trunk/Autoplot/src/external/applot.pro is IDL software which will connect to Autoplot on the server plot and send over data.

Advanced Details

It may be necessary for Autoplot to issue a newline after the prompt is sent, so that a client code can see that Autoplot is finished when buffering prevents this. This can be done by resetting the prompt property of ApplicationModel:

dom.controller.applicationModel.prompt='autoplot>\n'

Note that when the connection is broken, the server will shut down and must be restarted.