Provided by: pdl_2.084-1_amd64 bug

NAME

       PDL::FAQ - Frequently asked questions about PDL

VERSION

       Current FAQ version:  1.008

DESCRIPTION

       This is version 1.008 of the PDL FAQ, a collection of  frequently asked questions about
       PDL - the Perl Data Language.

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

   Q: 1.1    Where to find this document
       You can find the latest version of this document at
       <http://pdl.perl.org/?docs=FAQ&title=Frequently%20Asked%20Questions> .

   Q: 1.2    How to contribute to this document
       This is a considerably reworked version of the PDL FAQ. As such many errors might have
       crept in and many updates might not have made it in.  You are explicitly encouraged to let
       us know about questions which you think should be answered in this document but currently
       aren't.

       Similarly, if you think parts of this document are unclear, please tell the FAQ maintainer
       about it. Where a specific answer is taken in full from someones posting the authorship
       should be indicated, let the FAQ maintainer know if it isn't. For more general information
       explicit acknowledgment is not made in the text, but rather there is an incomplete list of
       contributors at the end of this document. Please contact the FAQ maintainer if you feel
       hard done by.

       Send your comments, additions, suggestions or corrections to the PDL mailing list at
       pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net.  See Q: 3.2 below for instructions on how to join the
       mailing lists.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

   Q: 2.1    What is PDL ?
       PDL stands for Perl Data  Language . To say it with the words of Karl Glazebrook,
       initiator of the PDL project:

           The PDL concept is to give standard perl5 the ability
           to COMPACTLY store and SPEEDILY manipulate the large
           N-dimensional data sets which are the bread and butter
           of scientific computing. e.g. $x=$y+$z can add two
           2048x2048 images in only a fraction of a second.

       It provides tons of useful functionality for scientific and numeric analysis.

       For readers familiar with other scientific data evaluation packages it may be helpful to
       add that PDL is in many respects similar to IDL, MATLAB and similar packages. However, it
       tries to improve on a number of issues which were perceived (by the authors of PDL) as
       shortcomings of those existing packages.

   Q: 2.2    Who supports PDL? Who develops it?
       PDL is supported by its users. General informal support for PDL is provided through the
       PDL mailing list (pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net , see below).

       As a Perl extension (see Q: 2.5 below) it is devoted to the idea of free and open
       development put forth by the Perl community. PDL was and is being actively developed by a
       loosely knit group of people around the world who coordinate their activities through the
       PDL development mailing list (pdl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net , see Q: 3.2 below). If you
       would like to join in the ongoing efforts to improve PDL please join this list.

   Q: 2.3    Why yet another Data Language ?
       There are actually several reasons and everyone should decide for themselves which are the
       most important ones:

       •   PDL is "free software". The authors of PDL think that this concept has several
           advantages: everyone has access to the sources -> better debugging, easily adaptable
           to your own needs, extensible for your purposes, etc... In comparison with commercial
           packages such as MATLAB and IDL this is of considerable importance for workers who
           want to do some work at home and cannot afford the considerable cost to buy commercial
           packages for personal use.

       •   PDL is based on a powerful and well designed scripting language: Perl. In contrast to
           other scientific/numeric data analysis languages it has been designed using the
           features of a proven language instead of having grown into existence from scratch.
           Defining the control structures while features were added during development leads to
           languages that often appear clumsy and badly planned for most existing packages with
           similar scope as PDL.

       •   Using Perl as the basis a PDL programmer has all the powerful features of Perl at
           their hand, right from the start. This includes regular expressions, associative
           arrays (hashes), well designed interfaces to the operating system, network, etc.
           Experience has shown that even in mainly numerically oriented programming it is often
           extremely handy if you have easy access to powerful semi-numerical or completely non-
           numerical functionality as well. For example, you might want to offer the results of a
           complicated computation as a server process to other processes on the network, perhaps
           directly accepting input from other processes on the network. Using Perl and existing
           Perl extension packages things like this are no problem at all (and it all will fit
           into your "PDL script").

       •   Extremely easy extensibility and interoperability as PDL is a Perl extension;
           development support for Perl extensions is an integral part of Perl and there are
           already numerous extensions to standard Perl freely available on the network.

       •   Integral language features of Perl (regular expressions, hashes, object modules)
           immensely facilitated development and implementation of key concepts of PDL. One of
           the most striking examples for this point is probably PDL::PP (see Q: 6.16 below), a
           code generator/parser/pre-processor that generates PDL functions from concise
           descriptions.

       •   None of the existing data languages follow the Perl language rules, which the authors
           firmly believe in:

           •   TIMTOWTDI: There is more than one way to do it.  Minimalist languages are
               interesting for computer scientists, but for users, a little bit of redundancy
               makes things wildly easier to cope with and allows individual programming styles -
               just as people speak in different ways. For many people this will undoubtedly be a
               reason to avoid PDL ;)

           •   Simple things are simple, complicated things possible: Things that are often done
               should be easy to do in the language, whereas seldom done things shouldn't be too
               cumbersome.

           All existing languages violate at least one of these rules.

       •   As a project for the future PDL should be able to use super computer features, e.g.
           vector capabilities/parallel processing, GPGPU acceleration. This will probably be
           achieved by having PDL::PP (see Q: 6.16 below) generate appropriate code on such
           architectures to exploit these features.

       •   [ fill in your personal 111 favourite reasons here...]

   Q: 2.4    What is PDL good for ?
       Just in case you do not yet know what the main features of PDL are and what one could do
       with them, here is a (necessarily selective) list of key features:

       PDL is well suited for matrix computations, general handling of multidimensional data,
       image processing, general scientific computation, numerical applications. It supports I/O
       for many popular image and data formats, 1D (line plots), 2D (images) and 3D (volume
       visualization, surface plots via OpenGL - for instance implemented using Mesa or video
       card OpenGL drivers), graphics display capabilities and implements many numerical and
       semi-numerical algorithms.

       Through the powerful pre-processor it is also easy to interface Perl to your favorite C
       routines, more of that further below.

   Q: 2.5    What is the connection between PDL and Perl ?
       PDL is a Perl5 extension package. As such it needs an existing Perl5 installation (see
       below) to run. Furthermore, much of PDL is written in Perl (+ some core functionality that
       is written in C). PDL programs are (syntactically) just Perl scripts that happen to use
       some of the functionality implemented by the package "PDL".

   Q: 2.6    What do I need to run PDL on my machine ?
       Since PDL is just a Perl5 package you need first of all an installation of Perl5 on your
       machine. As of this writing PDL requires version 5.10.x of perl, or higher.  More
       information on where and how to get a Perl installation can be found at the Perl home page
       <http://www.perl.org> and at many CPAN sites (if you do not know what CPAN is, check the
       answer to the next question).

       To build PDL you also need a working C compiler, support for Xsubs, and the package
       Extutils::MakeMaker. If you don't have a compiler there might be a binary distribution
       available, see "Binary distributions" below.

       If you can (or cannot) get PDL working on a new (previously unsupported) platform we would
       like to hear about it. Please, report your success/failure to the PDL mailing list at
       pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net . We will do our best to assist you in porting PDL to a
       new system.

   Q: 2.7    Where do I get it?
       PDL is available as source distribution in the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (or
       CPAN) and from the GitHub project page at <https://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl>.  The CPAN
       archives contains not only the PDL distribution but also just about everything else that
       is Perl-related.  CPAN is mirrored by dozens of sites all over the world.  The main site
       is <http://www.cpan.org>, and local CPAN sites (mirrors) can be found there. PDL's
       homepage is at <http://pdl.perl.org> and the latest version can also be downloaded from
       there.

   Q: 2.8    What do I have to pay to get PDL?
       We are delighted to be able to give you the nicest possible answer on a question like
       this: PDL is *free software* and all sources are publicly available. But still, there are
       some copyrights to comply with. So please, try to be as nice as we (the PDL authors) are
       and try to comply with them.

       Oh, before you think it is *completely* free: you have to invest some time to pull the
       distribution from the net, compile and install it and (maybe) read the manuals.

GETTING HELP/MORE INFORMATION

   Q: 3.1    Where can I get information on PDL?
       The complete PDL documentation is available with the PDL distribution.  Use the command
       "perldoc PDL" to start learning about PDL.

       The easiest way by far, however, to get familiar with PDL is to use the PDL on-line help
       facility from within the PDL shell, "pdl2"  Just type "pdl2" at your system prompt. Once
       you are inside the "pdl2" shell type "help" .  Using the "help" and "apropos" commands
       inside the shell you should be able to find the way round the documentation.

       Even better, you can immediately try your newly acquired knowledge about PDL by issuing
       PDL/Perl commands directly at the command line. To illustrate this process, here is the
       record of a typical "pdl2" session of a PDL beginner (lengthy output is only symbolically
       reproduced in braces ( <... ...> ) ):

           unix> pdl2
           pdl> help
           < ... help output ... >
           pdl> help PDL::QuickStart
           < ... perldoc page ... >
           pdl> $x = pdl (1,5,7.3,1.0)
           pdl> $y = sequence float, 4, 4
           pdl> help inner
           < ... help on the 'inner' function ... >
           pdl> $c = inner $x, $y
           pdl> p $c
           [22.6 79.8 137 194.2]

       For further sources of information that are accessible through the Internet see next
       question.

   Q: 3.2    Are there other PDL information sources on the Internet?
       First of all, for all purely Perl-related questions there are tons of sources on the net.
       Good points to start are <http://www.perl.com> and <http://www.perl.org> .

       The PDL home site can be accessed by pointing your web browser to <http://pdl.perl.org> .
       It has tons of goodies for anyone interested in PDL:

       •   PDL distributions

       •   On-line documentation

       •   Pointers to an HTML archive of the PDL mailing lists

       •   A list of platforms on which PDL has been successfully tested.

       •   News about recently added features, ported libraries, etc.

       •   Name of the current pumpkin holders for the different PDL modules (if you want to know
           what that means you better had a look at the web pages).

       If you are interested in PDL in general you can join the pdl-general mailing list. This is
       a forum to discuss programming issues in PDL, report bugs, seek assistance with PDL
       related problems, etc.

       If you are interested in all the technical details of the ongoing PDL development you can
       join the pdl-devel mailing list.

       Subscription and current archive links to both mailing lists can be found at
       <http://pdl.perl.org/?page=mailing-lists>.

       Cross-posting between these lists should be avoided unless there is a very good reason for
       doing that.

       The PDL project, begun in the late 1990s, has undergone considerable evolution since that
       time, and the support for it has as well. Thus mailing-list archives are in several
       places.  Originally pdl-general was called 'perldl', and pdl-devel was called
       'pdl-porters'.

       |Time Period | URL                                                   |
       |------------|-------------------------------------------------------| |1996 - 2004 |
       http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perldl/      | |1997 - 2004 |
       http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/pdl-porters/ | |2005 - 2015 |
       http://perldl.jach.hawaii.narkive.com/                | |2005 - 2015 |
       http://pdl-porters.jach.hawaii.narkive.com/           | |2015 -      |
       https://sourceforge.net/p/pdl/mailman/pdl-general/    | |2015 -      |
       https://sourceforge.net/p/pdl/mailman/pdl-devel/      |
       |--------------------------------------------------------------------|

   Q: 3.3    What is the current version of PDL ?
       As of this writing (FAQ version 1.008 of 21 May 2017) the latest stable version is 2.018.
       The latest stable version should always be available from a CPAN mirror site near you (see
       Question 2.7 for info on where to get PDL).

       The most current (possibly unstable) version of PDL can be obtained from the Git
       repository, see Question 4.10 and periodic CPAN developers releases of the Git code will
       be made for testing purposes and more general availability.

   Q: 3.4  How can PDL-2.2 be older than PDL-2.007?
       Over its development, PDL has used both a single floating point version number (from the
       versions 1.x through 2.005) at which point it switched to a dotted triple version for
       2.1.1 onward---EXCEPT for version 2.2 which came out which should have been 2.2.0.  To
       simplify and unify things, PDL has reverted to a single float version representation with
       PDL-2.006.  This can cause dependency problems for modules that set a minimum PDL version
       of 2.2.  The work around it, note that all extant PDL releases have version numbers
       greater than 2.2.1 so that using 0 as the minimum version will work.

   Q: 3.5    I want to contribute to the further development of PDL. How can I help?
       Two ways that you could help almost immediately are (1) participate in CPAN Testers for
       PDL and related modules, and (2) proofreading and clarifying the PDL documentation so that
       it is most useable for PDL users, especially new users.

       To participate in CPAN Testers and contribute test reports, the page
       <http://wiki.cpantesters.org/wiki/QuickStart> has instructions for starting for either
       "CPAN" or "CPANPLUS" users.

       If you have a certain project in mind you should check if somebody else is already working
       on it or if you could benefit from existing modules. Do so by posting your planned project
       to the PDL developers mailing list at pdl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net . See the
       subscription instructions in Question 3.2.  We are always looking for people to write code
       and/or documentation ;).

   Q: 3.6    I think I have found a bug in the current version of PDL. What shall I do?
       First, make sure that the bug/problem you came across has not already been dealt with
       somewhere else in this FAQ.  Secondly, you can check the searchable archive of the PDL
       mailing lists to find whether this bug has already been discussed.  If you still haven't
       found any explanations you can post a bug report to pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net , or
       through the Bugs link on <http://pdl.perl.org> .  See the BUGS file in the PDL
       distribution for what information to include.  If you are unsure, discussions via the
       perldl mailing list can be most helpful.

INSTALLATION

   Q: 4.1    I have problems installing PDL. What shall I do?
       First make sure you have read the file INSTALL in the distribution.  This contains a list
       of common problems which are unnecessary to repeat here.

       Next, check the file perldl.conf to see if by editing the configuration options in that
       file you will be able to successfully build PDL. Some of the modules need additional
       software installed, please refer to the file DEPENDENCIES for further details. Make sure
       to edit the location of these packages in perldl.conf if you have them in non-standard
       locations.

       N.B. Unix shell specific: If you would like to save an edited perldl.conf for future
       builds just copy it as ~/.perldl.conf into your home directory where it will be picked up
       automatically during the PDL build process.

       Also, check for another, pre-existing version of PDL on the build system.  Multiple PDL
       installs in the same PATH or @INC can cause puzzling test or build failures.

       If you still can't make it work properly please submit a bug report including detailed
       information on the problems you encountered to the perldl mailing list (
       pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net , see also above). Response is often rapid.

   Q: 4.2    Are there configuration files for PDL I have to edit?
       Most users should not have to edit any configuration files manually.  However, in some
       cases you might have to supply some information about awkwardly placed include
       files/libraries or you might want to explicitly disable building some of the optional PDL
       modules.  Check the files INSTALL and perldl.conf for details.

       If you had to manually edit perldl.conf and are happy with the results you can keep the
       file handy for future reference. Place it in ~/.perldl.conf where it will be picked up
       automatically or use "perl Makefile.PL  PDLCONF=your_file_name" next time you build PDL.

   Q: 4.3    Do I need other software for successful operation?
       For the basic PDL functionality you don't need any additional software.  However, some of
       the optional PDL modules included in the distribution (notably most graphics and some I/O
       modules) require certain other libraries/programs to be installed. Check the file
       DEPENDENCIES in the distribution for details and directions on how to get these.

   Q: 4.4    How can I install PDL in a non-standard location?
       To install PDL in a non-standard location, use the INSTALL_BASE option in the "perl
       Makefile.PL" configure step.  For example, "perl Makefile.PL INSTALL_BASE=/mydir/perl5"
       will configure PDL to install into the tree rooted at "/mydir/perl5".  For more details
       see "How do I keep my own module/library directory?" in perlfaq8 and subsequent sections.
       Another alternative is to use local::lib to do the heavy lifting for the needed
       configuration.

   Q: 4.5    How can I force a completely clean installation?
       To guarantee a completely clean installation of PDL, you will need to first delete the
       current installation files and folders.  These will be all directories named "PDL" in the
       Perl @INC path, files named "*Pdlpp*" in any "Inline" directories, and the programs "pdl,
       pdldoc, pdl2, perldl, and pptemplate".  Then just build and install as usual.  This is
       much easier to keep track of if you always install "PDL" into a non-standard location.
       See Q: 4.4 above.

BINARY DISTRIBUTIONS

   Q: 4.5    What binary distributions are available?
       Information about binary distributions of PDL can be found on <http://pdl.perl.org> .  At
       present there are binary distributions of PDL for Linux (RedHat and Debian), FreeBSD, Mac
       OS X and Windows, though they might not be the most recent version.

       If someone is interested in providing binary distributions for other architectures, that
       would be very welcome. Let us know on the pdl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list.
       Also check your Linux distribution's package manager as many now include PDL.  PPMs for
       win32 versions (both 32bit and 64bit) are also available.

   Q: 4.6    Does PDL run on Linux? (And what about packages?)
       Yes, PDL does run on Linux and indeed much of the development has been done under Linux.
       On <http://pdl.perl.org> you can find links to packages for some of the major
       distributions. Also check your distribution's package manager (yum, apt, urpmi, ...)  as
       PDL is now found by many of these.

   Q: 4.7    Does PDL run under Windows?
       PDL builds fine on Win32 using MinGW or Microsoft compilers.  See the win32/INSTALL file
       in the PDL source distribution for details.  Other compilers have not been tested--input
       is welcome.  There is also a distribution of PDL through ActiveState's ppm, though it
       might not always be the latest version.  PDL-2.018 builds out of the box on Strawberry
       Perl and ActiveState Perl and there are distributions of Strawberry Perl with bundled PDL
       (see <http://strawberryperl.com/releases.html>).

CVS, GIT, AND ON-GOING DEVELOPMENT

   Q: 4.8    Can I get PDL via CVS?
       No.  PDL development was conducted with a CVS repository from December 1999 to April 2009.
       In April 2009 the project switched to the Git version control system (see
       <http://git-scm.com>).

   Q: 4.9    How do I get PDL via Git?
       Assume you have Git installed on your system and want to download the project source code
       into the directory "PDL". To get read-only access to the repository, you type at the
       command line

          git clone git://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl

       If you wish to submit changes to PDL, you should "fork" the repository from
       <https://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl>, then clone your fork in the normal fashion.

       To become an official PDL developer, you will need to be added to the GitHub "PDLPorters"
       organisation.

       For official PDL developers, to get read/write access to the repository type at the
       command line

          git clone git://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl

       They can still use their own fork; at least one active developer uses that model rather
       than branches on the main repository.

   Q: 4.10   I had a problem with the Git version, how do I check if someone has submitted a
       patch?
       The best way is to check <https://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl/pulls> to see if somebody has
       submitted a pull request related to your problem.

       In addition, if you are not subscribing to the mailing list, check the archive of the
       "pdl-devel" and "pdl-general" mailing lists.  See Question 3.2 for details.

   Q: 4.11   I have gotten developer access to Git, how do I upload my changes?
       The first thing you should do is to read the Git documentation and learn the basics about
       Git. There are many sources available online.  It is very important that you use Git "best
       practice", with branches, but fortunately this is very easy! Here are the basics.

       Make sure your copy is up to date with the main repo:

          git checkout master
          git pull --rebase # rebase in case you wrongly changed your own master

       Make a branch:

          git checkout -b mybranch-name

       Commit your changes locally:

          git add <file1> <file2> ...
          git commit

       or combine these two with:

          git commit -a

       Test the PDL before you push it to the main repository.  If the code is broken for you,
       then it is most likely broken for others.  Luckily, the rest of this process will test
       that automatically to help you catch such errors.

       Then update the shared repository with your changes:

          git push -u origin mybranch-name

       This will still leave your changes on a branch, but this is good. Now go to the GitHub
       page, <https://github.com/PDLPorters/pdl>. It will ask you whether you want to make a
       "pull request" - you do. Follow the prompts. This will then initiate the automated
       "continuous integration" tests, on Linux and Windows, with various versions of Perl, with
       various compilers. You will also want to get at least one other developer to review your
       changes.

       Once this review process is successfully completed, you can merge your changes to the
       master branch!

PDL JARGON

   Q: 5.1    What is broadcasting (is PDL a newsreader)?
       Until 2.075, "threading" was used to refer to two ideas, but that ambiguity has now been
       resolved by using the now (as of 2022) industry-standard term "broadcasting" for the
       vectorisation / array-programming concept.

       •   When mentioned in the INSTALL directions and possibly during the build process we have
           the usual computer science meaning of multi-threading in mind (useful mainly on
           multiprocessor machines or clusters), currently (as of 2.074) POSIX threads (see
           PDL::ParallelCPU).

       •   PDL broadcasting of operations on ndarrays (as mentioned in the indexing docs) is the
           iteration of a basic operation over appropriate sub-slices of ndarrays, e.g. the inner
           product "inner $x, $y" of a (3) pdl $x and a (3,5,4) pdl $y results in a (5,4) ndarray
           where each value is the result of an inner product of the (3) pdl with a (3) sub-slice
           of the (3,5,4) ndarray.  For details check PDL::Indexing

       The connection is that broadcasting divides up independent operations that can be done in
       parallel.

   Q: 5.2    What is an ndarray?
       Well, PDL scalar variables (which are instances of a particular class of Perl objects,
       i.e. blessed thingies (see "perldoc perlobj" )) are in common PDL parlance often called
       ndarrays (for example, check the mailing list archives).  Err, clear?  If not, simply use
       the term ndarray when you refer to a PDL variable (an instance of a PDL object as you
       might remember) regardless of what actual data the PDL variable contains.

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

   Q: 6.1    What is perldl?   What is pdl2?
       Sometimes "perldl" ("pdl2") is used as a synonym for PDL. Strictly speaking, however, the
       name "perldl" ("pdl2") is reserved for the little shell that comes with the PDL
       distribution and is supposed to be used for the interactive prototyping of PDL scripts.
       For details check perldl or pdl2.

   Q: 6.2    How do I get on-line help for PDL?
       Just type "help" (shortcut = "?") at the "pdl2" shell prompt and proceed from there.
       Another useful command is the "apropos" (shortcut = "??") command.  Also try the "demo"
       command in the "perldl" or "pdl2" shell if you are new to PDL.

MANIPULATION OF NDARRAYS

   Q: 6.3    I want to access the third element of a pdl but $x[2] doesn't work ?!
       See answer to the next question why the normal Perl array syntax doesn't work for
       ndarrays.

   Q: 6.4    The docs say ndarrays are some kind of array. But why doesn't the Perl array syntax
       work with ndarrays then ?
       OK, you are right in a way. The docs say that ndarrays can be thought of arrays.  More
       specifically, it says ( PDL::QuickStart ):

           I find when using the Perl Data Language it is most useful
           to think of standard Perl @x variables as "lists" of generic
           "things" and PDL variables like $x as "arrays" which can be
           contained in lists or hashes.

       So, while ndarrays can be thought of as some kind of multi-dimensional array they are  not
       arrays in the Perl sense. Rather, from the point of view of Perl they are some special
       class (which is currently implemented as an opaque pointer to some stuff in memory) and
       therefore need special functions (or 'methods' if you are using the OO version) to access
       individual elements or a range of elements. The functions/methods to check are "at" /
       "set" (see the section 'Sections' in PDL::QuickStart ) or the powerful "slice" function
       and friends (see PDL::Slices and PDL::Indexing and especially PDL::NiceSlice ).

       Finally, to confuse you completely, you can have Perl arrays of ndarrays, e.g. $spec[3]
       can refer to a pdl representing ,e.g, a spectrum, where $spec[3] is the fourth element of
       the Perl list (or array ;) @spec .  This may be confusing but is very useful !

   Q: 6.5    How do I concatenate ndarrays?
       Most people will try to form new ndarrays from old ndarrays using some variation over the
       theme: "$x =  pdl([$y, 0, 2])".  This does work, but may not work in the way that a novice
       user would expect. (If $y has N dimensions then $x will have N+1 dimensions.) Other ways
       to concatenate ndarrays are to use the functions "cat", "append", and "glue". Similarly
       you can split ndarrays using the command "dog".

   Q: 6.6    Sometimes I am getting these strange results when using inplace  operations?
       This question is related to the "inplace" function. From the documentation (see
       PDL::QuickStart):

           Most functions, e.g. log(), return a result which is a
           transformation of their argument. This makes for good
           programming practice. However many operations can be done
           "in-place" and this may be required when large arrays are in
           use and memory is at a premium. For these circumstances the
           operator inplace() is provided which prevents the extra copy
           and allows the argument to be modified. e.g.:

           $x = log($array);          # $array unaffected
           log( inplace($bigarray) ); # $bigarray changed in situ

       And also from the doc !!:

           Obviously when used with some functions which can not be
           applied in situ (e.g. convolve()) unexpected effects may
           occur!

   Q: 6.7    What is this strange usage of the string concatenation operator  ".="  in PDL
       scripts?
       See next question on assignment in PDL.

   Q: 6.8    Why are there two different kinds of assignment in PDL ?
       This is caused by the fact that currently the assignment operator "=" allows only
       restricted overloading. For some purposes of PDL it turned out to be necessary to have
       more control over the overloading of an assignment operator. Therefore, PDL peruses the
       operator ".=" for certain types of assignments.

   Q: 6.9    How do I set a set of values in an ndarray?
       In Perl 5.6.7 and higher this assignment can be made using lvalue subroutines:

           pdl> $x = sequence(5); p $x
           [0 1 2 3 4]
           pdl> $x->slice('1:2') .= pdl([5,6])
           pdl> p $x
           [0 5 6 3 4]

       see PDL::Lvalue for more info.  PDL also supports a more matrix-like slice syntax via the
       PDL::NiceSlice module:

           pdl> $x(1:2) .= pdl([5,6])
           pdl> p $x
           [0 5 6 3 4]

       With versions of Perl prior to 5.6.7 or when running under the perl debugger this has to
       be done using a temporary variable:

           pdl> $x = sequence(5); p $x
           [0 1 2 3 4]
           pdl> $tmp = $x->slice('1:2'); p $tmp;
           [1 2]
           pdl> $tmp .= pdl([5, 6]);    # Note .= !!
           pdl> p $x
           [0 5 6 3 4]

       This can also be made into one expression, which is often seen in PDL code:

           pdl> ($tmp = $x->slice('1:2')) .= pdl([5,6])
           pdl> p $x
           [0 5 6 3 4]

   Q: 6.10   Can I use an ndarray in a conditional expression?
       Yes you can, but not in the way you probably tried first. It is not possible to use an
       ndarray directly in a conditional expression since this is usually poorly defined. Instead
       PDL has two very useful functions: "any" and "all" . Use these to test if any or all
       elements in an ndarray fulfills some criterion:

           pdl> $x=pdl ( 1, -2, 3);
           pdl> print '$x has at least one element < 0' if (any $x < 0);
           $x has at least one element < 0

           pdl> print '$x is not positive definite' unless (all $x > 0);
           $x is not positive definite

   Q: 6.11   Logical operators and ndarrays -  '||' and '&&' don't work!
       It is a common problem that you try to make a mask array or something similar using a
       construct such as

           $mask = which($ndarray > 1 && $ndarray < 2);   # incorrect

       This  does not work! What you are looking for is the  bitwise logical operators '|' and
       '&' which work on an element-by-element basis. So it is really very simple: Do not use
       logical operators on multi-element ndarrays since that really doesn't make sense, instead
       write the example as:

           $mask = which($ndarray > 1 & $ndarray < 2);

       which works correctly.

ADVANCED TOPICS

   Q: 6.12   What is a null pdl ?
       "null" is a special token for 'empty ndarray'. A null pdl can be used to flag to a PDL
       function that it should create an appropriately sized and typed ndarray. Null ndarrays can
       be used in places where a PDL function expects an output or temporary argument. Output and
       temporary arguments are flagged in the signature of a PDL function with the "[o]" and
       "[t]" qualifiers (see next question if you don't know what the signature of a PDL function
       is).  For example, you can invoke the "sumover" function as follows:

           sumover $x, $y=null;

       which is equivalent to

           $y = sumover $x;

       If this seems still a bit murky check PDL::Indexing and PDL::PP for details about calling
       conventions, the signature and broadcasting (see also below).

   Q: 6.13   What is the signature of a PDL function ?
       The signature of a function is an important concept in PDL.  Many (but not all) PDL
       function have a signature which specifies the arguments and their (minimal)
       dimensionality. As an example, look at the signature of the "maximum" function:

           'a(n); [o] b;'

       this says that "maximum" takes two arguments, the first of which is (at least) one-
       dimensional while the second one is zero-dimensional and an output argument (flagged by
       the "[o]" qualifier). If the function is called with ndarrays of higher dimension the
       function will be repeatedly called with slices of these ndarrays of appropriate
       dimension(this is called broadcasting in PDL).

       For details and further explanations consult PDL::Indexing and PDL::PP .

   Q: 6.14   How can I subclass (inherit from) ndarrays?
       The short answer is: read PDL::Objects (e.g. type "help PDL::Objects" in the perldl or
       pdl2 shell).

       The longer answer (extracted from PDL::Objects ): Since a PDL object is an opaque
       reference to a C struct, it is not possible to extend the PDL class by e.g. extra data via
       sub-classing (as you could do with a hash based Perl object).  To circumvent this problem
       PDL has built-in support to extend the PDL class via the has-a relation for blessed
       hashes. You can get the HAS-A to behave like IS-A simply in that you assign the PDL object
       to the attribute named "PDL" and redefine the method initialize(). For example:

           package FOO;

           @FOO::ISA = qw(PDL);
           sub initialize {
              my $class = shift;
              my $self = {
                 creation_time => time(),  # necessary extension :-)
                 PDL => PDL->null,         # used to store PDL object
              };
              bless $self, $class;
           }

       For another example check the script t/subclass.t in the PDL distribution.

   Q: 6.15   What on earth is this dataflow stuff ?
       Dataflow is an experimental project that you don't need to concern yourself with (it
       should not interfere with your usual programming).  However, if you want to know, have a
       look at PDL::Dataflow . There are applications which will benefit from this feature (and
       it is already at work behind the scenes).

   Q: 6.16   What is PDL::PP?
       Simple answer: PDL::PP is both a glue between external libraries and PDL and a concise
       language for writing PDL functions.

       Slightly longer answer: PDL::PP is used to compile very concise definitions into XSUB
       routines implemented in C that can easily be called from PDL and which automatically
       support broadcasting, dataflow and other things without you having to worry about it.

       For further details check PDL::PP and the section below on Extensions of PDL.

   Q: 6.17   What happens when I have several references to the same PDL object in different
       variables (cloning, etc?) ?
       ndarrays behave like Perl references in many respects. So when you say

           $x = pdl [0,1,2,3];
           $y = $x;

       then both $y and $x point to the same object, e.g. then saying

           $y++;

       will *not* create a copy of the original ndarray but just increment in place, of which you
       can convince yourself by saying

           print $x;
           [1 2 3 4]

       This should not be mistaken for dataflow which connects several *different* objects so
       that data changes are propagated between the so linked ndarrays (though, under certain
       circumstances, dataflowed ndarrays can share physically the same data).

       It is important to keep the "reference nature" of ndarrays in mind when passing ndarrays
       into subroutines. If you modify the input ndarrays you modify the original argument, not a
       copy of it. This is different from some other array processing languages but makes for
       very efficient passing of ndarrays between subroutines. If you do not want to modify the
       original argument but rather a copy of it just create a copy explicitly (this example also
       demonstrates how to properly check for an explicit request to process inplace, assuming
       your routine can work inplace):

           sub myfunc {
              my $pdl = shift;
              if ($pdl->is_inplace) {
                 $pdl->set_inplace(0)
              } else {
                 # modify a copy by default
                 $pdl = $pdl->copy
              }
              $pdl->set(0,0);
              return $pdl;
           }

MISCELLANEOUS

   Q: 6.18   What I/O formats are supported by PDL ?
       The current versions of PDL already support quite a number of different I/O formats.
       However, it is not always obvious which module implements which formats.  To help you find
       the right module for the format you require, here is a short list of the current list of
       I/O formats and a hint in which module to find the implementation:

       •   A home brew fast raw (binary) I/O format for PDL is implemented by the FastRaw module

       •   The FlexRaw module implements generic methods for the input and output of `raw' data
           arrays.  In particular, it is designed to read output from FORTRAN 77 UNFORMATTED
           files and the low-level C "write" function, even if the files are compressed or
           gzipped.

           It is possible that the FastRaw functionality will be included in the FlexRaw module
           at some time in the future.

       •   FITS I/O is implemented by the "wfits"/"rfits" functions in PDL::IO::FITS .

       •   ASCII file I/O in various formats can be achieved by using the "rcols" and "rgrep"
           functions, also in PDL::IO::Misc .

       •   PDL::IO::Pic implements an interface to the NetPBM/PBM+ filters to read/write several
           popular image formats; also supported is output of image sequences as MPEG movies,
           animated GIFs and a wide variety of other video formats.

       •   On CPAN you can find the PDL::NetCDF module that works with PDL 2.007.

       For further details consult the more detailed list in the PDL::IO documentation or the
       documentation for the individual modules.

   Q: 6.19   How can I stack a set of 2D arrays (images) into a 3D ndarray?
       Assuming all arrays are of the same size and in some format recognized by "rpic" (see
       PDL::IO::Pic ) you could say:

           use PDL::IO::Pic;
           @names = qw/name1.tif .... nameN.tif/;  # some file names
           $dummy = PDL->rpic($names[0]);
           $cube = PDL->zeroes($dummy->type,$dummy->dims,$#names+1); # make 3D ndarray
           for (0..$#names) {
               # this is the slice assignment
               ($tmp = $cube->slice(":,:,($_)")) .= PDL->rpic($names[$_]);
           }

       or

           $cube(:,:,($_)) .= PDL->rpic($names[$_]);

       for the slice assignment using the new PDL::NiceSlice syntax and Lvalue assignments.

       The for loop reads the actual images into a temporary 2D ndarray whose values are then
       assigned (using the overloaded ".=" operator) to the appropriate slices of the 3D ndarray
       $cube .

   Q: 6.20   Where are test files for the graphics modules?
       This answer applies mainly to PDL::Graphics::TriD (PDL's device independent 3D graphics
       model) which is the trickiest one in this respect. You find some test scripts in
       Demos/TriD in the distribution.  There are also 3dtest.pl and line3d.pl in the
       PDL/Example/TriD directory.  After you have built PDL you can do:

           perl -Mblib Example/TriD/3dtest.pl

           perl -Mblib Example/TriD/line3d.pl

       to try the two TriD test programs.  They only exercise one TriD function each but their
       simplicity makes it easy to debug if needed with the Perl debugger, see perldebug.

       The programs in the Demo directory can be run most easily from the "perldl" or "pdl2"
       interactive shell:

           perl -Mblib perldl  or  perl -Mblib Perldl2/pdl2

       followed by "demo 3d" or "demo 3d2" at the prompt.  "demo" by itself will give you a list
       of the available PDL demos.

       You can run the test scripts in the Demos/TriD directory manually by changing to that
       directory and running

           perl -Mblib <testfile>

       where "testfile" ; should match the pattern "test[3-9].p" and watch the results. Some of
       the tests should bring up a window where you can control (twiddle) the 3D objects with the
       mouse. Try using mouse button 1 for turning the objects in 3D space, mouse button 3 to
       zoom in and out, and 'q' to advance to the next stage of the test.

   Q: 6.21   What is TriD or PDL::TriD or PDL::Graphics::TriD?
       Questions like this should be a thing of the past with the PDL on-line help system in
       place. Just try (after installation):

           un*x> pdl2
           pdl> apropos trid

       Check the output for promising hits and then try to look up some of them, e.g.

           pdl> help PDL::Graphics::TriD

       Note that case matters with "help" but not with "apropos" .

   Q: 6.22   PGPLOT does not write out PNG files.
       There are a few sources of trouble with PGPLOT and PNG files. First, when compiling the
       pgplot libraries, make sure you uncomment the PNG entries in the drivers.list file. Then
       when running 'make' you probably got an error like

         C<make: *** No rule to make target `png.h', needed by `pndriv.o'.  Stop.>

       To fix this, find the line in the 'makefile' that starts with 'pndriv.o:' (it's near the
       bottom). Change, for example, ./png.h to /usr/include/png.h, if that is where your header
       files are (you do have the libpng and libz devel packages, don't you?).  Do this for all
       four entries on that line, then go back and run "make".

       Second, if you already have the PGPLOT Perl module and PDL installed, you probably tried
       to write out a PNG file and got fatal error message like:

         C<undefined symbol: png_create_write_struct>

       This is because the PGPLOT Perl module does not automatically link against the png and z
       libraries. So when you are installing the PGPLOT Perl module (version 2.19) from CPAN,
       don't do "install PGPLOT", but just do "get PGPLOT". Then exit from CPAN and manually
       install PGPLOT, calling the makefile thusly:

         C<perl Makefile.PL EXLIB=png,z EXDIR=/usr/lib>

       assuming that there exist files such as /usr/lib/libpng.so.*, /usr/lib/libz.so.*. Then do
       the standard "make;make test;make install;" sequence. Now you can write png files from
       PDL!

EXTENSIONS OF PDL

   Q: 7.1    I am looking for a package to do XXX in PDL. Where shall I look for it?
       The first stop is again "perldl" or "pdl2" and the on-line help or the PDL documentation.
       There is already a lot of functionality in PDL which you might not be aware of.  The
       easiest way to look for functionality is to use the "apropos" command:

           pdl> apropos 'integral'
           ceil            Round to integral values in floating-point format
           floor           Round to integral values in floating-point format
           intover         Project via integral to N-1 dimensions
           rint            Round to integral values in floating-point format

       Since the apropos command is no sophisticated search engine make sure that you search on a
       couple of related topics and use short phrases.

       However there is a good chance that what you need is not part of the PDL distribution. You
       are then well advised to check out <http://pdl.perl.org> where there is a list of packages
       using PDL. If that does not solve your problem, ask on the mailing-list, if nothing else
       you might get assistance which will let you interface your package with PDL yourself, see
       also the next question.

   Q: 7.2    Can I access my C/FORTRAN library routines in  PDL?
       Yes, you can, in fact it is very simple for many simple applications. What you want is the
       PDL pre-processor PP (PDL::PP ). This will allow you to make a simple interface to your C
       routine.

       The two functions you need to learn (at least first) are "pp_def" which defines the
       calling interface to the function, specifying input and output parameters, and contains
       the code that links to the external library. The other command is "pp_end" which finishes
       the PP definitions.  For details see the PDL::PP man-page, but we also have a worked
       example here.

           double eight_sum(int n)
           {
                int i;
                double sum, x;

                sum = 0.0; x=0.0;
                for (i=1; i<=n; i++) {
                  x++;
                  sum += x/((4.0*x*x-1.0)*(4.0*x*x-1.0));
                }
                return 1.0/sum;
           }

       We will here show you an example of how you interface C code with PDL. This is the first
       example and will show you how to approximate the number 8...

       The C code is shown above and is a simple function returning a double, and expecting an
       integer - the number of terms in the sum - as input. This function could be defined in a
       library or, as we do here, as an inline function.

       We will postpone the writing of the Makefile till later. First we will construct the ".pd"
       file. This is the file containing PDL::PP code. We call this "eight.pd" .

           #
           # pp_def defines a PDL function.
           #
           pp_addhdr (
           '
           double eight_sum(int n)
           {
             int i;
             double sum, x;

             sum = 0.0; x=0.0;
             for (i=1; i<=n; i++) {
              x++;
              sum += x/((4.0*x*x-1.0)*(4.0*x*x-1.0));
             }
            return 1.0/sum;

           }
           ');

           pp_def (
                   'eight',
                Pars => 'int a(); double [o]b();',
                   Code => '$b()=eight_sum($a());'
                  );

           # Always make sure that you finish your PP declarations with
           # pp_done

           pp_done();

       A peculiarity with our example is that we have included the entire code with "pp_addhdr"
       instead of linking it in. This is only for the purposes of example, in a typical
       application you will use "pp_addhdr" to include header files. Note that the argument to
       "pp_addhdr" is enclosed in quotes.

       What is most important in this example is however the "pp_def" command. The first argument
       to this is the name of the new function eight  , then comes a hash which the real meat:

       •   This gives the input parameters (here  "a") and the output parameters (here  "b"). The
           latter are indicated by the  "[o]" specifier. Both arguments can have a type
           specification as shown here.

           Many variations and further flexibility in the interface can be specified. See
           "perldoc PDL::PP" for details.

       •   This switch contains the code that should be executed. As you can see this is a rather
           peculiar mix of C and Perl, but essentially it is just as you would write it in C, but
           the variables that are passed from PDL are treated differently and have to be referred
           to with a preceding '$'.

           There are also simple macros to pass pointers to data and to obtain the values of
           other Perl quantities, see the manual page for further details.

       Finally note the call to "pp_done()" at the end of the file. This is necessary in all PP
       files.

       OK. So now we have a file with code that we dearly would like to use in Perl via PDL. To
       do this we need to compile the function, and to do that we need a Makefile.

           use PDL::Core::Dev;
           use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
           PDL::Core::Dev->import();

           $package = ["eight.pd",Eight,PDL::Eight,'',1];
           %hash = pdlpp_stdargs($package);

           WriteMakefile( %hash );

           sub MY::postamble {pdlpp_postamble($package)}

       The code above should go in a file called Makefile.PL, which should subsequently be called
       in  the standard Perl way: "perl Makefile.PL" .  This should give you a Makefile and
       running "make" should compile the module for you and "make install" will install it for
       you.

       The fifth element in the $package array-ref is true. This tells PDL to generate one C file
       per PP function, which with the right "make" options can be compiled in parallel, for a
       useful speedup of development / installation.

   Q: 7.3    How can I interface package XXX in PDL?
       This question is closely related to the previous one, and as we said there, the PDL::PP
       pre-processor is the standard way of interfacing external packages with PDL. The most
       usual way to use PDL::PP is to write a short interface routine, see the PDL::PP perldoc
       page and the answer to the previous question for examples.

       However it is also possible to interface a package to PDL by re-writing your function in
       PDL::PP directly. This can be convenient in certain situations, in particular if you have
       a routine that expects a function as input and you would like to pass the function a Perl
       function for convenience.

       The PDL::PP perldoc page is the main source of information for writing PDL::PP extensions,
       but it is very useful to look for files in the distribution of PDL as many of the core
       functions are written in PDL::PP. Look for files that end in ".pd" which is the generally
       accepted suffix for PDL::PP files. But we also have a simple example here.

       The following example will show you how to write a simple function that automatically
       allows broadcasting. To make this concise the example is of an almost trivial function,
       but the intention is to show the basics of writing a PDL::PP interface.

       We will write a simple function that calculates the minimum, maximum and average of an
       ndarray. On my machine the resulting function is 8 times faster than the built-in function
       "stats" (of course the latter also calculates the median).

       Let's jump straight in. Here is the code (from a file called "quickstats.pd" )

           #
           pp_def('quickstats',
                Pars => 'a(n); [o]avg(); [o]max(); [o]min()',
                Code => '$GENERIC(a) curmax, curmin;
                         $GENERIC(a) tmp=0;
                            loop(n) %{
                              tmp += $a();
                              if (!n || $a() > curmax) { curmax = $a();}
                              if (!n || $a() < curmin) { curmin = $a();}
                            %}
                            $avg() = tmp/$SIZE(n);
                         $max() = curmax;
                         $min() = curmin;
                           '
                );

           pp_done();

       The above might look like a confusing mixture of C and Perl, but behind the peculiar
       syntax lies a very powerful language. Let us take it line by line.

       The first line declares that we are starting the definition of a PDL:PP function called
       "quickstats" .

       The second line is very important as it specifies the input and output parameters of the
       function.  a(n) tells us that there is one input parameter that we will refer to as "a"
       which is expected to be a vector of length n (likewise matrices, both square and
       rectangular would be written as "a(n,n)" and "a(n,m)" respectively). To indicate that
       something is an output parameter we put "[o]" in front of their names, so referring back
       to the code we see that avg, max and min are three output parameters, all of which are
       scalar (since they have no dimensional size indicated.

       The third line starts the code definition which is essentially pure C but with a couple of
       convenient functions.  $GENERIC is a function that returns the C type of its argument -
       here the input parameter a. Thus the first two lines of the code section are variable
       declarations.

       The loop(n) construct is a convenience function that loops over the dimension called n in
       the parameter section. Inside this loop we calculate the cumulative sum of the input
       vector and keep track of the maximum and minimum values. Finally we assign the resulting
       values to the output parameters.

       Finally we finish our function declaration with "pp_done()" .

       To compile our new function we need to create a Makefile, which we will just list since
       its creation is discussed in an earlier question.

           use PDL::Core::Dev;
           use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
           PDL::Core::Dev->import();

           $package = ["quickstats.pd",Quickstats,PDL::Quickstats,'',1];
           %hash = pdlpp_stdargs($package);

           WriteMakefile( %hash );

           sub MY::postamble {pdlpp_postamble($package)}

       An example Makefile.PL

       Our new statistic function should now compile using the tried and tested Perl way: "perl
       Makefile.PL; make" .

       You should experiment with this function, changing the calculations and input and output
       parameters. In conjunction with the PDL::PP perldoc page this should allow you to quickly
       write more advanced routines directly in PDL::PP.

BUGS

       If you find any inaccuracies in this document (or dis-functional URLs) please report to
       the perldl mailing list pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       Achim Bohnet (ach@mpe.mpg.de ) for suggesting CoolHTML as a prettypodder (although we have
       switched to XML now) and various other improvements. Suggestions for some questions were
       taken from Perl FAQ and adapted for PDL.

CONTRIBUTORS

       Many people have contributed or given feedback on the current version of the FAQ, here is
       an incomplete list of individuals whose contributions or posts to the mailing-list have
       improved this FAQ at some point in time alphabetically listed by first name: Christian
       Soeller, Chris Marshall, Doug Burke, Doug Hunt, Frank Schmauder, Jarle Brinchmann, John
       Cerney, Karl Glazebrook, Kurt Starsinic, Thomas Yengst, Tuomas J. Lukka.

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

       This document emerged from a joint effort of several PDL developers (Karl Glazebrook,
       Tuomas J. Lukka, Christian Soeller) to compile a list of the most frequently asked
       questions about PDL with answers.  Permission is granted for verbatim copying (and
       formatting) of this material as part of PDL.

       Permission is explicitly not granted for distribution in book or any corresponding form.
       Ask on the PDL mailing list pdl-general@lists.sourceforge.net if some of the issues
       covered in here are unclear.