Perl Data Language Files

+-------------------------------------------------+
|                                                 |
|  Draft release of the PDL Book for PDL-2.4.10   |
|  - PDL-Book-20120205.pdf                        |
|                                                 |
+-------------------------------------------------+


Release Notes for PDL 2.4.10 --------------------------

General Notes:

 New Stuff:

  * PDL::Constants module provides E, PI, I (or J) and more.

  * PDL::NiceSlice has a new engine based on Filter::Simple
    which is more selective about where the PDL::NiceSlice
    source filter is applied.

  * pdl() constructor now accepts a string argument which
    can include MATLAB-style [ ; ] syntax, bad values,
    inf values, and nan values.  This makes it much easier
    to specify pdl values in programs and scripts.

  * PDL now supports pthreads on all platforms as well
    as a new, auto-parallelization capability for PDL
    threadloops across multiple processors using the
    PDL::ParallelCPU module.

  * Many(!) bug fixes.


 Incompatible Changes:

  * List output from whichND is now deprecated.

  * The default.perldlrc uses PDL::Constants to
    provide E and PI.

  * perldl.conf has new fields so be sure to update
    any local versions you use with the new fields.

  * rcols and wcols always use dim0 for the data
    dimension and dim1 for the column dimension.
    This only matters if you use the support for
    reading multiple columns into a 2D pdl.

  * Makefile.PL now requires at least version 6.31
    of ExtUtils::MakeMaker to support the new standard
    INSTALL_BASE option matching Module::Build usage.

  * Prerequisite Text::Balanced minimum version is
    now 1.89 although this is not expected to be an
    issue because it is provided in the perl core
    since 5.8.0.


Highlights:

 * General cleanup of code, including restructuring for clarity.
 
 * List output from whichND() is now deprecated.  whichND() now returns
   a piddle of coordinates in all cases with a warning when a list
   context is detected.  See the docs for work-arounds to your code.
 
 * PDL::IO::Misc now has better support for handles that are not
   files (e.g., pipes or standard input) for rgrep(), rcols(),...
 
 * Added bad value support to pctover() and oddpctover().
   This was sf.net feature #3328001.
 
 * New whereND() routine provides the same functionality as where
   but with support for multi-dimensional masks and implicit
   threading over higher dimensions.  This was sf.net feature
   request #3390043.
 
 * Many bugs fixed.
 
     3059083  Problems with FITS header handling
     3080505  PLplot segfaults on plshades call on OS X
     3285520  status message from gslmroot_fsolver
     3294808  sever on Empty piddle causes segfault
     3295544  NiceSlice parsing bug
     3299611  FITS I/O obscure bug
     3300467  NiceSlice asterisk parsing issue
     3307121  wmpeg sometimes kills perldl if file already exists
     3307613  indexND of Empty pdls can segfault
     3368883  t/opengl.t fails if display type not available
     3375837  _read_flexhdr state machine fails
     3388862  tiny bug in PDL-2.4.3. May apply to 2.4.9
     3391645  bad printf formats in pdlapi.c and others
     3394327  PDL::IO::FITS::wfits corrupting FITS image
     3396738  PDL::Core::convert default return type
     3410905  t/pgplot.t hangs test harness for PDL
     3415115  whereND fails to handle all zero mask case
     3428356  PDL::Transform::map output FITS header is slightly wrong
     3434842  Error in definition of gsl_sf_laguerre_n function
 
 * PDL::Constants now provides: E, PI, I and J and is loaded by the
   default.perldlrc.  It is not yet part of 'use PDL' so you'll need
   to 'use PDL::Constants ...' by hand for now.
 
 * default.perldlrc sets $PDL::IO::FlexRaw::writeflexhdr=1 by
   default so that writeflex() to a filename automatically writes
   the header file.  This is different from the previous behavior
   but it seems to "do what you mean".  Feedback welcome!
 
 * PDL::NiceSlice now has a new engine based on Filter::Simple which
   is smarter about only applying the slicing source filter to syntax
   occurring outside of POD, comments, and quotelike strings.  The
   new implementation is available for *files* by setting the
   PDL_NICESLICE_ENGINE environment variable to 'Filter::Simple'.
 
   Work is underway to port the new niceslice filter implementation
   to perldl/pdl2.  Once this task is completed, the new engine will
   become the default source filter and the PDL_NICESLICE_ENGINE
   environment variable will be removed.
 
 * There is experimental support for PDL::NiceSlice syntax in the
   perl debugger (i.e., perl -d).  Just set the PERL5DB environment
   variable to 'BEGIN { require "PDLdb.pl" }' to use niceslice
   from the debugger command line.  If PERL5DB is already set,
   you'll need to adjust the above recipe accordingly.
 
 * Better handling of build configuration options from perldl.conf
   as well as improvements in the detection of external dependencies.
 
 * perldl.conf has some new fields added:
    - POSIX_THREADS_INC and POSIX_THREADS_LIBS to specify
          locations of your pthread header file and library
    - PDL_CONFIG_VERSION to track the perldl.conf VERSION
    - PDLDOC_IGNORE_AUTOLOADER to control pdldoc behavior
    - PDL_BUILD_DIR provides the build directory path
    - PDL_BUILD_VERSION provides the PDL build version
          (to help with ambiguity from multiple PDL installs)
 
   NOTE: If you are using a private or customized perldl.conf
   file, please be sure to update with these additional fields
   as the perl Makefile.PL doesn't yet detect version skew
   automatically.
  
 * PDL::IO::Browser now builds in many cases (but not all).
   If you try it, please let us know how it goes.  Just edit
   the value of WITH_IO_BROWSER in your perldl.conf before
   configuring the build (i.e., perl Makefile.PL).
 
 * PDL::PP has seen some significant improvements including
   code cleanup, improved documentation, and code refactoring
   for comprehension.  There is a new PDL::PP::pp_line_numbers()
   routine which enables line # traceback for errors and warnings
   from PP code.
 
 * Improved error output from the pdl2 shell via the new
   CleanErrors plugin which filters out the non-PDL part
   of the error output leading to *much* more concise and
   helpful reports.
 
 * The pdl() constructor now accepts a string argument which
   allows for writing pdls using a matlab/octave style
   syntax as well as cutting and pasting from interactive
   session output to create pdls initializations for scripts
   and program files.
   
   The new constructor also allows for inf, nan, and bad to
   generate the appropriate values (case insensitive), e.g.,
 
      $bad = pdl q[1 2 3 bad 5 6];  # Set fourth element to the bad value
      $bad = pdl q[1 2 3 BAD 5 6];  # ditto
      $bad = pdl q[1 2 inf bad 5];  # now third element is IEEE infinite value
      $bad = pdl q[nan 2 inf -inf]; # first value is IEEE nan value
 
   This is new functionality so feedback and problem reports
   are welcome.
 
 * PDL::Image2D has new routines: pnpoly() to determine the points
   in a polygon from the sequence of vertex coordinates, and
   cc4compt() for 4-component labeling of a binary image.
 
 * PDL now supports pdls larger than 2GiB.  The element count
   is still an int type internally so the total number of elements
   per-piddle must be less than 2**31.
 
 * POSIX threads (pthreads) are supported for win32 and cygwin
   platforms.  Pthreads are now available for all PDL platforms.
 
 * New PDL::ParallelCPU module provides automatic distribution
   of implicit thread loops across a number of processors.  Now
   you can watch your PDL computations maximize the load on
   *all* your processors.  See the docs for how to configure this
   feature and how to adjust your calculations to best take
   advantage of this feature.
 
 * PDL::Graphics::PLplot now works with the latest release of the
   PLplot library and has improved configuration and build
   handling.  Feedback welcome.
 
 * rcols() and wcols() now use the same convention for multi-column
   input and output: dim0 is *always* the data dimension and
   dim1 corresponds to the columns in the file.  This adjustment
   makes them their inverse operations.
 
 * The ADEV calculation in statsover has been corrected along
   with the documentation.
 
 * PDL::Graphics::TriD changes:
    - PDL::Graphics::TriD now builds using the perl OpenGL
          module (POGL) when configured on cygwin with the
          interface=W32API option.  By default, POGL used
          interface=GLX on cygwin which does software rendering
          via Mesa/X11 (slower!).  If you reinstall POGL with
          the W32API setting, you will need to rebuild PDL and
          PDL::Graphics::TriD to pick up the new configuration.
    - A new 4-line graphics demo contributed by Mark Baker has
          been added to 'demo 3dgal'.  Take a look.
 
 * Various enhancements to FITS handling, including:
   - add map() fix for nonlinear FITS headers
   - Enable hdrpcy() in rfits() for Rice-compressed images
 
 * Test suite improvements to provide better diagnostics from
   failures and to make tests more correct avoiding "false fails"
   in the test reports.  Various tests have been migrated to use
   File::Temp::tempdir and File::Temp::tempfile to improve the
   robustness for temporary files and directories naming and
   creation during tests.
 
 * Update ExtUtils::MakeMaker required version to 6.31 to support
   the new standard of INSTALL_BASE to configure for a local
   perl/PDL module installation.
 
 * Update Text::Balanced required version to 1.89.  This is the
   version present in perl 5.8.0 (the minimum required for PDL)
   so this change in requirement is not expected to affect any
   PDL users.
 
 * pdldoc now searches your PDLLIB path for PDL::AutoLoader docs
   in addition to the pre-extracted documentation database.  This
   makes pdldoc give the same output as the help command in the
   PDL shells.
 
 * Many updates and additions to the PDL documentation.
 
 * Devel::CheckLib is being used in more places during the
   PDL configuration stage.  We plan to make this the standard
   baseline for dependency library detection going forwards.
   The included copy of Devel::CheckLib has been updated to 0.95.
 
 * A new unified implementation of barf()/warn() for PDL removes
   code duplication.  barf() is now defined in both PDL::Core and
   the PDL packages.  PDL::cluck is added as an analog of Carp::cluck
   (as PDL::barf is an analog of Carp::confess).  barf() now
   generates its stack trace by hooking into Carp::confess on
   both the Perl and C sides.
 
 * Various fixes for PDL::Transform
   - fix inverse in perspective()
   - fix t_cubic() parameter parsing
   - fix handling of multiple PCi_j systems in the piddle header
 
 * Added SIGPIPE handlers to cases where PDL uses pipes to/from
   external processes (such as ffmpeg or some NetPBM image
   converter programs).  This should make PDL "SIGPIPE safe" by not
   exiting when a PDL piped IO output process quits (e.g., as when
   called from within the perldl/pdl2 shell).