The Perl Data Language (PDL): A Quick Reference Guide

The Perl Data Language (PDL) is a powerful package that uses C (and sometimes Fortran) to efficiently handle multidimensional data sets. This package has been successfully used in a variety of applications. To help you get started with (or to learn more about) this package, I collected a few references (in a question and answer format) that serve as a brief overview of PDL.

Q: I am curious: who created PDL?

A: Karl Glazebrook. He is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Johns Hopkins University.

Q: Ok. I want to get started with PDL, is there a Web Page for that project?

A: Yes, the PDL – The Perl Data Language Web Page

Q: Sounds interesting, where can I download it?

A: You can get it from CPAN or from SourceForge.net

Q: I downloaded it. What should I read first, just to get started?

A: I suggest you to have a look at PDL for the Impatient

Q: I read it. What should I read now?

A: There is a very good article, in the Perl Journal, titled: PDL: The Perl Data Language

Q: Good. Is there any other source of documentation available?

Yes, there is a Table of Contents of PDL Documentation

Q: That is good. But I am interested in a book or a book chapter, where can I find those?

A: There are, at least, two books and one book chapter related to PDL.

Books:

Beginning PDL (File Size: about 425 KB)
PDL – Scientific Programming in Perl (File Size: about 2.1 MB)

Book chapter

Chapter 7 of Mastering Algorithms with Perl

Q: Excellent! But I am curious, are there any other references available?

A: Yes, there are. For example, you might want to look at:

Perl Data Language at the Wikipedia
Using Perl for Statistics: Data Processing and Statistical Computing in the (Journal of Statistical Software):
A lightning talk on Optimising Multi-Tasking in PDL
A tutorial (in Spanish) titled: A Beginners Guide to PDL
Lecture notes from (U.C. Berkeley) on the Perl Data Language

Q: Terrific! Now, if I have a question where can I ask for help?

A: You can subscribe to the PDL Mailing Lists and ask there for help. And, of course, you can always ask for help in the Monastery

Q: Great. Now I am wondering: are there any freely available examples?

A: Yes, there are. Here, I leave you a small list:

pdl.perl.org: PDL Success Stories
perlmonks.org: PDL-based Plotting Tool
perlmonks.org: Sports Conference Rankings, Colley Matrix Style
perlmonks.org: Number of unique ways to reach target sum
perlmonks.org: OpenGL (PDL) JAPH
perlmonks.org: Reading Files in PDL Matrix
perlmonks.org: PDL Examples?
perlmonks.org: Fuzzy Clustering

Q: Cool! Now, the next question is: are there any packages using PDL?

A: Yes, some of them are:

Q: One last question, is PDL going to be supported by Perl 6?

A: Yes. In fact, the plan is for the Perl 6 features to make it easier for the PDL folks to write numeric Perl. See for instance, perl6: Synopsis 9: Data Structures

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