Re: gnuplot vs. emacs' compile command

[Richard Stallman]

   emacs -eval '(compile "sh gpaction")'       # doesn't plot, but returns

M-x compile kills the whole process group when the compiler exits.
This is because it needs to deallocate the pty.  In situations like
this, the result is undesirable, but I don't see what change we could
reasonably make.,

   emacs -eval '(shell-command "sh gpaction")' # plots, but then hangs

This uses call-process.  I think that waits until the output pipe
returns EOF, which I think requires it to get closed by all writers.
This might be a bug, but I am not sure it is a bug.

If gnuplot were to give the subprocess a different standard output
descriptor, Emacs would not wait for it to terminate.