PDL::PPp - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

PDL::PP - Generate PDL routines from concise descriptions

SYNOPSIS

e.g.

pp_def(
'sumover',
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b();',
Code => q{
double tmp=0;
loop(n) %{
tmp += $a();
%}
$b() = tmp;
},
);

pp_done();

FUNCTIONS

Here is a quick reference list of the functions provided by PDL::PP.

pp_add_boot
Add code to the BOOT section of generated XS file

pp_add_exported
Add functions to the list of exported functions

pp_add_isa
Add entries to the @ISA list

pp_addbegin
Sets code to be added at the top of the generate .pm file

pp_addhdr
Add code and includes to C section of the generated XS file

pp_addpm
Add code to the generated .pm file

pp_addxs
Add extra XS code to the generated XS file

pp_beginwrap
Add BEGIN-block wrapping to code for the generated .pm file

pp_bless
Sets the package to which the XS code is added (default is PDL)

pp_boundscheck
Control state of PDL bounds checking activity

pp_core_importList
Specify what is imported from PDL::Core

pp_def
Define a new PDL function

pp_deprecate_module
Add runtime and POD warnings about a module being deprecated

pp_done
Mark the end of PDL::PP definitions in the file

pp_export_nothing
Clear out the export list for your generated module

pp_line_numbers
Add line number information to simplify debugging of PDL::PP code

pp_setversion
Set the version for .pm and .xs files

OVERVIEW

Why do we need PP? Several reasons: firstly, we want to be able to generate subroutine
code for each of the PDL datatypes (PDL_Byte, PDL_Short,. etc). AUTOMATICALLY. Secondly,
when referring to slices of PDL arrays in Perl (e.g. "$a->slice('0:10:2,:')" or other
things such as transposes) it is nice to be able to do this transparently and to be able
to do this 'in-place' - i.e, not to have to make a memory copy of the section. PP handles
all the necessary element and offset arithmetic for you. There are also the notions of
threading (repeated calling of the same routine for multiple slices, see PDL::Indexing)
and dataflow (see PDL::Dataflow) which use of PP allows.

In much of what follows we will assume familiarity of the reader with the concepts of
implicit and explicit threading and index manipulations within PDL. If you have not yet
heard of these concepts or are not very comfortable with them it is time to check
PDL::Indexing.

As you may appreciate from its name PDL::PP is a Pre-Processor, i.e. it expands code via
substitutions to make real C-code. Technically, the output is XS code (see perlxs) but
that is very close to C.

So how do you use PP? Well for the most part you just write ordinary C code except for
special PP constructs which take the form:

$something(something else)

or:

PPfunction %{
<stuff>
%}

The most important PP construct is the form "$array()". Consider the very simple PP
function to sum the elements of a 1D vector (in fact this is very similar to the actual
code used by 'sumover'):

pp_def('sumit',
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b();',
Code => q{
double tmp;
tmp = 0;
loop(n) %{
tmp += $a();
%}
$b() = tmp;
}
);

What's going on? The "Pars =>" line is very important for PP - it specifies all the
arguments and their dimensionality. We call this the signature of the PP function (compare
also the explanations in PDL::Indexing). In this case the routine takes a 1-D function as
input and returns a 0-D scalar as output. The "$a()" PP construct is used to access
elements of the array a(n) for you - PP fills in all the required C code.

You will notice that we are using the "q{}" single-quote operator. This is not an
accident. You generally want to use single quotes to denote your PP Code sections. PDL::PP
uses "$var()" for its parsing and if you don't use single quotes, Perl will try to
interpolate "$var()". Also, using the single quote "q" operator with curly braces makes it
look like you are creating a code block, which is What You Mean. (Perl is smart enough to
look for nested curly braces and not close the quote until it finds the matching curly
brace, so it's safe to have nested blocks.) Under other circumstances, such as when you're
stitching together a Code block using string concatenations, it's often easiest to use
real single quotes as

Code => 'something'.$interpolatable.'somethingelse;'

In the simple case here where all elements are accessed the PP construct "loop(n) %{ ...
%}" is used to loop over all elements in dimension "n". Note this feature of PP: ALL
DIMENSIONS ARE SPECIFIED BY NAME.

This is made clearer if we avoid the PP loop() construct and write the loop explicitly
using conventional C:

pp_def('sumit',
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b();',
Code => q{
int i,n_size;
double tmp;
n_size = $SIZE(n);
tmp = 0;
for(i=0; i<n_size; i++) {
tmp += $a(n=>i);
}
$b() = tmp;
},
);

which does the same as before, but is more long-winded. You can see to get element "i" of
a() we say "$a(n=>i)" - we are specifying the dimension by name "n". In 2D we might say:

Pars=>'a(m,n);',
...
tmp += $a(m=>i,n=>j);
...

The syntax "m=>i" borrows from Perl hashes, which are in fact used in the implementation
of PP. One could also say "$a(n=>j,m=>i)" as order is not important.

You can also see in the above example the use of another PP construct - $SIZE(n) to get
the length of the dimension "n".

It should, however, be noted that you shouldn't write an explicit C-loop when you could
have used the PP "loop" construct since PDL::PP checks automatically the loop limits for
you, usage of "loop" makes the code more concise, etc. But there are certainly situations
where you need explicit control of the loop and now you know how to do it ;).

To revisit 'Why PP?' - the above code for sumit() will be generated for each data-type. It
will operate on slices of arrays 'in-place'. It will thread automatically - e.g. if a 2D
array is given it will be called repeatedly for each 1D row (again check PDL::Indexing for
the details of threading). And then b() will be a 1D array of sums of each row. We could
call it with $a->xchg(0,1) to sum the columns instead. And Dataflow tracing etc. will be
available.

You can see PP saves the programmer from writing a lot of needlessly repetitive C-code --
in our opinion this is one of the best features of PDL making writing new C subroutines
for PDL an amazingly concise exercise. A second reason is the ability to make PP expand
your concise code definitions into different C code based on the needs of the computer
architecture in question. Imagine for example you are lucky to have a supercomputer at
your hands; in that case you want PDL::PP certainly to generate code that takes advantage
of the vectorising/parallel computing features of your machine (this a project for the
future). In any case, the bottom line is that your unchanged code should still expand to
working XS code even if the internals of PDL changed.

Also, because you are generating the code in an actual Perl script, there are many fun
things that you can do. Let's say that you need to write both sumit (as above) and multit.
With a little bit of creativity, we can do

for({Name => 'sumit', Init => '0', Op => '+='},
{Name => 'multit', Init => '1', Op => '*='}) {
pp_def($_->{Name},
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b();',
Code => '
double tmp;
tmp = '.$_->{Init}.';
loop(n) %{
tmp '.$_->{Op}.' $a();
%}
$b() = tmp;
');
}

which defines both the functions easily. Now, if you later need to change the signature or
dimensionality or whatever, you only need to change one place in your code. Yeah, sure,
your editor does have 'cut and paste' and 'search and replace' but it's still less
bothersome and definitely more difficult to forget just one place and have strange bugs
creep in. Also, adding 'orit' (bitwise or) later is a one-liner.

And remember, you really have Perl's full abilities with you - you can very easily read
any input file and make routines from the information in that file. For simple cases like
the above, the author (Tjl) currently favors the hash syntax like the above - it's not too
much more characters than the corresponding array syntax but much easier to understand and
change.

We should mention here also the ability to get the pointer to the beginning of the data in
memory - a prerequisite for interfacing PDL to some libraries. This is handled with the
"$P(var)" directive, see below.

When starting work on a new pp_def'ined function, if you make a mistake, you will usually
find a pile of compiler errors indicating line numbers in the generated XS file. If you
know how to read XS files (or if you want to learn the hard way), you could open the
generated XS file and search for the line number with the error. However, a recent
addition to PDL::PP helps report the correct line number of your errors:
"pp_line_numbers". Working with the original summit example, if you had a mis-spelling of
tmp in your code, you could change the (erroneos) code to something like this and the
compiler would give you much more useful information:

pp_def('sumit',
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b();',
Code => pp_line_numbers(__LINE__, q{
double tmp;
tmp = 0;
loop(n) %{
tmp += $a();
%}
$b() = rmp;
})
);

For the above situation, my compiler tells me:

...
test.pd:15: error: 'rmp' undeclared (first use in this function)
...

In my example script (called test.pd), line 15 is exactly the line at which I made my
typo: "rmp" instead of "tmp".

So, after this quick overview of the general flavour of programming PDL routines using
PDL::PP let's summarise in which circumstances you should actually use this
preprocessor/precompiler. You should use PDL::PP if you want to

· interface PDL to some external library

· write some algorithm that would be slow if coded in Perl (this is not as often as you
think; take a look at threading and dataflow first).

· be a PDL developer (and even then it's not obligatory)

WARNING

Because of its architecture, PDL::PP can be both flexible and easy to use on the one hand,
yet exuberantly complicated at the same time. Currently, part of the problem is that error
messages are not very informative and if something goes wrong, you'd better know what you
are doing and be able to hack your way through the internals (or be able to figure out by
trial and error what is wrong with your args to "pp_def"). Although work is being done to
produce better warnings, do not be afraid to send your questions to the mailing list if
you run into trouble.

DESCRIPTION

Now that you have some idea how to use "pp_def" to define new PDL functions it is time to
explain the general syntax of "pp_def". "pp_def" takes as arguments first the name of the
function you are defining and then a hash list that can contain various keys.

Based on these keys PP generates XS code and a .pm file. The function "pp_done" (see
example in the SYNOPSIS) is used to tell PDL::PP that there are no more definitions in
this file and it is time to generate the .xs and
.pm file.

As a consequence, there may be several pp_def() calls inside a file (by convention files
with PP code have the extension .pd or .pp) but generally only one pp_done().

There are two main different types of usage of pp_def(), the 'data operation' and 'slice
operation' prototypes.

The 'data operation' is used to take some data, mangle it and output some other data; this
includes for example the '+' operation, matrix inverse, sumover etc and all the examples
we have talked about in this document so far. Implicit and explicit threading and the
creation of the result are taken care of automatically in those operations. You can even
do dataflow with "sumit", "sumover", etc (don't be dismayed if you don't understand the
concept of dataflow in PDL very well yet; it is still very much experimental).

The 'slice operation' is a different kind of operation: in a slice operation, you are not
changing any data, you are defining correspondences between different elements of two
piddles (examples include the index manipulation/slicing function definitions in the file
slices.pd that is part of the PDL distribution; but beware, this is not introductory level
stuff).

If PDL was compiled with support for bad values (i.e. "WITH_BADVAL => 1"), then additional
keys are required for "pp_def", as explained below.

If you are just interested in communicating with some external library (for example some
linear algebra/matrix library), you'll usually want the 'data operation' so we are going
to discuss that first.

Data operation

A simple example
In the data operation, you must know what dimensions of data you need. First, an example
with scalars:

pp_def('add',
Pars => 'a(); b(); [o]c();',
Code => '$c() = $a() + $b();'
);

That looks a little strange but let's dissect it. The first line is easy: we're defining a
routine with the name 'add'. The second line simply declares our parameters and the
parentheses mean that they are scalars. We call the string that defines our parameters and
their dimensionality the signature of that function. For its relevance with regard to
threading and index manipulations check the PDL::Indexing man page.

The third line is the actual operation. You need to use the dollar signs and parentheses
to refer to your parameters (this will probably change at some point in the future, once a
good syntax is found).

These lines are all that is necessary to actually define the function for PDL (well,
actually it isn't; you additionally need to write a Makefile.PL (see below) and build the
module (something like 'perl Makefile.PL; make'); but let's ignore that for the moment).
So now you can do

use MyModule;
$a = pdl 2,3,4;
$b = pdl 5;

$c = add($a,$b);
# or
add($a,$b,($c=null)); # Alternative form, useful if $c has been
# preset to something big, not useful here.

and have threading work correctly (the result is $c == [7 8 9]).

The Pars section: the signature of a PP function
Seeing the above example code you will most probably ask: what is this strange "$c=null"
syntax in the second call to our new "add" function? If you take another look at the
definition of "add" you will notice that the third argument "c" is flagged with the
qualifier "[o]" which tells PDL::PP that this is an output argument. So the above call to
add means 'create a new $c from scratch with correct dimensions' - "null" is a special
token for 'empty piddle' (you might ask why we haven't used the value "undef" to flag this
instead of the PDL specific "null"; we are currently thinking about it ;).

[This should be explained in some other section of the manual as well!!] The reason for
having this syntax as an alternative is that if you have really huge piddles, you can do

$c = PDL->null;
for(some long loop) {
# munge a,b
add($a,$b,$c);
# munge c, put something back to a,b
}

and avoid allocating and deallocating $c each time. It is allocated once at the first
add() and thereafter the memory stays until $c is destroyed.

If you just say

$c = add($a,$b);

the code generated by PP will automatically fill in "$c=null" and return the result. If
you want to learn more about the reasons why PDL::PP supports this style where output
arguments are given as last arguments check the PDL::Indexing man page.

"[o]" is not the only qualifier a pdl argument can have in the signature. Another
important qualifier is the "[t]" option which flags a pdl as temporary. What does that
mean? You tell PDL::PP that this pdl is only used for temporary results in the course of
the calculation and you are not interested in its value after the computation has been
completed. But why should PDL::PP want to know about this in the first place? The reason
is closely related to the concepts of pdl auto creation (you heard about that above) and
implicit threading. If you use implicit threading the dimensionality of automatically
created pdls is actually larger than that specified in the signature. With "[o]" flagged
pdls will be created so that they have the additional dimensions as required by the number
of implicit thread dimensions. When creating a temporary pdl, however, it will always only
be made big enough so that it can hold the result for one iteration in a thread loop, i.e.
as large as required by the signature. So less memory is wasted when you flag a pdl as
temporary. Secondly, you can use output auto creation with temporary pdls even when you
are using explicit threading which is forbidden for normal output pdls flagged with "[o]"
(see PDL::Indexing).

Here is an example where we use the [t] qualifier. We define the function "callf" that
calls a C routine "f" which needs a temporary array of the same size and type as the array
"a" (sorry about the forward reference for $P; it's a pointer access, see below) :

pp_def('callf',
Pars => 'a(n); [t] tmp(n); [o] b()',
Code => 'int ns = $SIZE(n);
f($P(a),$P(b),$P(tmp),ns);
'
);

Argument dimensions and the signature
Now we have just talked about dimensions of pdls and the signature. How are they related?
Let's say that we want to add a scalar + the index number to a vector:

pp_def('add2',
Pars => 'a(n); b(); [o]c(n);',
Code => 'loop(n) %{
$c() = $a() + $b() + n;
%}'
);

There are several points to notice here: first, the "Pars" argument now contains the n
arguments to show that we have a single dimensions in a and c. It is important to note
that dimensions are actual entities that are accessed by name so this declares a and c to
have the same first dimensions. In most PP definitions the size of named dimensions will
be set from the respective dimensions of non-output pdls (those with no "[o]" flag) but
sometimes you might want to set the size of a named dimension explicitly through an
integer parameter. See below in the description of the "OtherPars" section how that works.

Constant argument dimensions in the signature
Suppose you want an output piddle to be created automatically and you know that on every
call its dimension will have the same size (say 9) regardless of the dimensions of the
input piddles. In this case you use the following syntax in the Pars section to specify
the size of the dimension:

' [o] y(n=9); '

As expected, extra dimensions required by threading will be created if necessary. If you
need to assign a named dimension according to a more complicated formula (than a constant)
you must use the "RedoDimsCode" key described below.

Type conversions and the signature
The signature also determines the type conversions that will be performed when a PP
function is invoked. So what happens when we invoke one of our previously defined
functions with pdls of different type, e.g.

add2($a,$b,($ret=null));

where $a is of type "PDL_Float" and $b of type "PDL_Short"? With the signature as shown in
the definition of "add2" above the datatype of the operation (as determined at runtime) is
that of the pdl with the 'highest' type (sequence is byte < short < ushort < long < float
< double). In the add2 example the datatype of the operation is float ($a has that
datatype). All pdl arguments are then type converted to that datatype (they are not
converted inplace but a copy with the right type is created if a pdl argument doesn't have
the type of the operation). Null pdls don't contribute a type in the determination of the
type of the operation. However, they will be created with the datatype of the operation;
here, for example, $ret will be of type float. You should be aware of these rules when
calling PP functions with pdls of different types to take the additional storage and
runtime requirements into account.

These type conversions are correct for most functions you normally define with "pp_def".
However, there are certain cases where slightly modified type conversion behaviour is
desired. For these cases additional qualifiers in the signature can be used to specify the
desired properties with regard to type conversion. These qualifiers can be combined with
those we have encountered already (the creation qualifiers "[o]" and "[t]"). Let's go
through the list of qualifiers that change type conversion behaviour.

The most important is the "int" qualifier which comes in handy when a pdl argument
represents indices into another pdl. Let's take a look at an example from "PDL::Ufunc":

pp_def('maximum_ind',
Pars => 'a(n); int [o] b()',
Code => '$GENERIC() cur;
int curind;
loop(n) %{
if (!n || $a() > cur) {cur = $a(); curind = n;}
%}
$b() = curind;',
);

The function "maximum_ind" finds the index of the largest element of a vector. If you look
at the signature you notice that the output argument "b" has been declared with the
additional "int" qualifier. This has the following consequences for type conversions:
regardless of the type of the input pdl "a" the output pdl "b" will be of type "PDL_Long"
which makes sense since "b" will represent an index into "a". Furthermore, if you call the
function with an existing output pdl "b" its type will not influence the datatype of the
operation (see above). Hence, even if "a" is of a smaller type than "b" it will not be
converted to match the type of "b" but stays untouched, which saves memory and CPU cycles
and is the right thing to do when "b" represents indices. Also note that you can use the
'int' qualifier together with other qualifiers (the "[o]" and "[t]" qualifiers). Order is
significant -- type qualifiers precede creation qualifiers ("[o]" and "[t]").

The above example also demonstrates typical usage of the "$GENERIC()" macro. It expands
to the current type in a so called generic loop. What is a generic loop? As you already
heard a PP function has a runtime datatype as determined by the type of the pdl arguments
it has been invoked with. The PP generated XS code for this function therefore contains a
switch like "switch (type) {case PDL_Byte: ... case PDL_Double: ...}" that selects a case
based on the runtime datatype of the function (it's called a type ``loop'' because there
is a loop in PP code that generates the cases). In any case your code is inserted once
for each PDL type into this switch statement. The "$GENERIC()" macro just expands to the
respective type in each copy of your parsed code in this "switch" statement, e.g., in the
"case PDL_Byte" section "cur" will expand to "PDL_Byte" and so on for the other case
statements. I guess you realise that this is a useful macro to hold values of pdls in some
code.

There are a couple of other qualifiers with similar effects as "int". For your
convenience there are the "float" and "double" qualifiers with analogous consequences on
type conversions as "int". Let's assume you have a very large array for which you want to
compute row and column sums with an equivalent of the "sumover" function. However, with
the normal definition of "sumover" you might run into problems when your data is, e.g. of
type short. A call like

sumover($large_pdl,($sums = null));

will result in $sums be of type short and is therefore prone to overflow errors if
$large_pdl is a very large array. On the other hand calling

@dims = $large_pdl->dims; shift @dims;
sumover($large_pdl,($sums = zeroes(double,@dims)));

is not a good alternative either. Now we don't have overflow problems with $sums but at
the expense of a type conversion of $large_pdl to double, something bad if this is really
a large pdl. That's where "double" comes in handy:

pp_def('sumoverd',
Pars => 'a(n); double [o] b()',
Code => 'double tmp=0;
loop(n) %{ tmp += a(); %}
$b() = tmp;',
);

This gets us around the type conversion and overflow problems. Again, analogous to the
"int" qualifier "double" results in "b" always being of type double regardless of the type
of "a" without leading to a type conversion of "a" as a side effect.

Finally, there are the "type+" qualifiers where type is one of "int" or "float". What
shall that mean. Let's illustrate the "int+" qualifier with the actual definition of
sumover:

pp_def('sumover',
Pars => 'a(n); int+ [o] b()',
Code => '$GENERIC(b) tmp=0;
loop(n) %{ tmp += a(); %}
$b() = tmp;',
);

As we had already seen for the "int", "float" and "double" qualifiers, a pdl marked with a
"type+" qualifier does not influence the datatype of the pdl operation. Its meaning is
"make this pdl at least of type "type" or higher, as required by the type of the
operation". In the sumover example this means that when you call the function with an "a"
of type PDL_Short the output pdl will be of type PDL_Long (just as would have been the
case with the "int" qualifier). This again tries to avoid overflow problems when using
small datatypes (e.g. byte images). However, when the datatype of the operation is higher
than the type specified in the "type+" qualifier "b" will be created with the datatype of
the operation, e.g. when "a" is of type double then "b" will be double as well. We hope
you agree that this is sensible behaviour for "sumover". It should be obvious how the
"float+" qualifier works by analogy. It may become necessary to be able to specify a set
of alternative types for the parameters. However, this will probably not be implemented
until someone comes up with a reasonable use for it.

Note that we now had to specify the $GENERIC macro with the name of the pdl to derive the
type from that argument. Why is that? If you carefully followed our explanations you will
have realised that in some cases "b" will have a different type than the type of the
operation. Calling the '$GENERIC' macro with "b" as argument makes sure that the type
will always the same as that of "b" in that part of the generic loop.

This is about all there is to say about the "Pars" section in a "pp_def" call. You should
remember that this section defines the signature of a PP defined function, you can use
several options to qualify certain arguments as output and temporary args and all
dimensions that you can later refer to in the "Code" section are defined by name.

It is important that you understand the meaning of the signature since in the latest PDL
versions you can use it to define threaded functions from within Perl, i.e. what we call
Perl level threading. Please check PDL::Indexing for details.

The Code section
The "Code" section contains the actual XS code that will be in the innermost part of a
thread loop (if you don't know what a thread loop is then you still haven't read
PDL::Indexing; do it now ;) after any PP macros (like $GENERIC) and PP functions have been
expanded (like the "loop" function we are going to explain next).

Let's quickly reiterate the "sumover" example:

pp_def('sumover',
Pars => 'a(n); int+ [o] b()',
Code => '$GENERIC(b) tmp=0;
loop(n) %{ tmp += a(); %}
$b() = tmp;',
);

The "loop" construct in the "Code" section also refers to the dimension name so you don't
need to specify any limits: the loop is correctly sized and everything is done for you,
again.

Next, there is the surprising fact that "$a()" and "$b()" do not contain the index. This
is not necessary because we're looping over n and both variables know which dimensions
they have so they automatically know they're being looped over.

This feature comes in very handy in many places and makes for much shorter code. Of
course, there are times when you want to circumvent this; here is a function which make a
matrix symmetric and serves as an example of how to code explicit looping:

pp_def('symm',
Pars => 'a(n,n); [o]c(n,n);',
Code => 'loop(n) %{
int n2;
for(n2=n; n2<$SIZE(n); n2++) {
$c(n0 => n, n1 => n2) =
$c(n0 => n2, n1 => n) =
$a(n0 => n, n1 => n2);
}
%}
'
);

Let's dissect what is happening. Firstly, what is this function supposed to do? From its
signature you see that it takes a 2D matrix with equal numbers of columns and rows and
outputs a matrix of the same size. From a given input matrix $a it computes a symmetric
output matrix $c (symmetric in the matrix sense that A^T = A where ^T means matrix
transpose, or in PDL parlance $c == $c->xchg(0,1)). It does this by using only the values
on and below the diagonal of $a. In the output matrix $c all values on and below the
diagonal are the same as those in $a while those above the diagonal are a mirror image of
those below the diagonal (above and below are here interpreted in the way that PDL prints
2D pdls). If this explanation still sounds a bit strange just go ahead, make a little file
into which you write this definition, build the new PDL extension (see section on
Makefiles for PP code) and try it out with a couple of examples.

Having explained what the function is supposed to do there are a couple of points worth
noting from the syntactical point of view. First, we get the size of the dimension named
"n" again by using the $SIZE macro. Second, there are suddenly these funny "n0" and "n1"
index names in the code though the signature defines only the dimension "n". Why this? The
reason becomes clear when you note that both the first and second dimension of $a and $b
are named "n" in the signature of "symm". This tells PDL::PP that the first and second
dimension of these arguments should have the same size. Otherwise the generated function
will raise a runtime error. However, now in an access to $a and $c PDL::PP cannot figure
out which index "n" refers to any more just from the name of the index. Therefore, the
indices with equal dimension names get numbered from left to right starting at 0, e.g. in
the above example "n0" refers to the first dimension of $a and $c, "n1" to the second and
so on.

In all examples so far, we have only used the "Pars" and "Code" members of the hash that
was passed to "pp_def". There are certainly other keys that are recognised by PDL::PP and
we will hear about some of them in the course of this document. Find a (non-exhaustive)
list of keys in Appendix A. A list of macros and PPfunctions (we have only encountered
some of those in the examples above yet) that are expanded in values of the hash argument
to "pp_def" is summarised in Appendix B.

At this point, it might be appropriate to mention that PDL::PP is not a completely static,
well designed set of routines (as Tuomas puts it: "stop thinking of PP as a set of
routines carved in stone") but rather a collection of things that the PDL::PP author
(Tuomas J. Lukka) considered he would have to write often into his PDL extension routines.
PP tries to be expandable so that in the future, as new needs arise, new common code can
be abstracted back into it. If you want to learn more on why you might want to change
PDL::PP and how to do it check the section on PDL::PP internals.

Handling bad values
If you do not have bad-value support compiled into PDL you can ignore this section and the
related keys: "BadCode", "HandleBad", ... (try printing out the value of
$PDL::Bad::Status - if it equals 0 then move straight on).

There are several keys and macros used when writing code to handle bad values. The first
one is the "HandleBad" key:

HandleBad => 0
This flags a pp-routine as NOT handling bad values. If this routine is sent piddles
with their "badflag" set, then a warning message is printed to STDOUT and the piddles
are processed as if the value used to represent bad values is a valid number. The
"badflag" value is not propogated to the output piddles.

An example of when this is used is for FFT routines, which generally do not have a way
of ignoring part of the data.

HandleBad => 1
This causes PDL::PP to write extra code that ensures the BadCode section is used, and
that the "$ISBAD()" macro (and its brethren) work.

HandleBad is not given
If any of the input piddles have their "badflag" set, then the output piddles will
have their "badflag" set, but any supplied BadCode is ignored.

The value of "HandleBad" is used to define the contents of the "BadDoc" key, if it is not
given.

To handle bad values, code must be written somewhat differently; for instance,

$c() = $a() + $b();

becomes something like

if ( $a() != BADVAL && $b() != BADVAL ) {
$c() = $a() + $b();
} else {
$c() = BADVAL;
}

However, we only want the second version if bad values are present in the input piddles
(and that bad-value support is wanted!) - otherwise we actually want the original code.
This is where the "BadCode" key comes in; you use it to specify the code to execute if bad
values may be present, and PP uses both it and the "Code" section to create something
like:

if ( bad_values_are_present ) {
fancy_threadloop_stuff {
BadCode
}
} else {
fancy_threadloop_stuff {
Code
}
}

This approach means that there is virtually no overhead when bad values are not present
(i.e. the badflag routine returns 0).

The BadCode section can use the same macros and looping constructs as the Code section.
However, it wouldn't be much use without the following additional macros:

$ISBAD(var)
To check whether a piddle's value is bad, use the $ISBAD macro:

if ( $ISBAD(a()) ) { printf("a() is bad\n"); }

You can also access given elements of a piddle:

if ( $ISBAD(a(n=>l)) ) { printf("element %d of a() is bad\n", l); }

$ISGOOD(var)
This is the opposite of the $ISBAD macro.

$SETBAD(var)
For when you want to set an element of a piddle bad.

$ISBADVAR(c_var,pdl)
If you have cached the value of a piddle "$a()" into a c-variable ("foo" say), then to
check whether it is bad, use "$ISBADVAR(foo,a)".

$ISGOODVAR(c_var,pdl)
As above, but this time checking that the cached value isn't bad.

$SETBADVAR(c_var,pdl)
To copy the bad value for a piddle into a c variable, use "$SETBADVAR(foo,a)".

TODO: mention "$PPISBAD()" etc macros.

Using these macros, the above code could be specified as:

Code => '$c() = $a() + $b();',
BadCode => '
if ( $ISBAD(a()) || $ISBAD(b()) ) {
$SETBAD(c());
} else {
$c() = $a() + $b();
}',

Since this is Perl, TMTOWTDI, so you could also write:

BadCode => '
if ( $ISGOOD(a()) && $ISGOOD(b()) ) {
$c() = $a() + $b();
} else {
$SETBAD(c());
}',

If you want access to the value of the badflag for a given piddle, you can use the
"$PDLSTATExxxx()" macros:

$PDLSTATEISBAD(pdl)
$PDLSTATEISGOOD(pdl)
$PDLSTATESETBAD(pdl)
$PDLSTATESETGOOD(pdl)

TODO: mention the "FindBadStatusCode" and "CopyBadStatusCode" options to "pp_def", as well
as the "BadDoc" key.

Interfacing your own/library functions using PP
Now, consider the following: you have your own C function (that may in fact be part of
some library you want to interface to PDL) which takes as arguments two pointers to
vectors of double:

void myfunc(int n,double *v1,double *v2);

The correct way of defining the PDL function is

pp_def('myfunc',
Pars => 'a(n); [o]b(n);',
GenericTypes => ['D'],
Code => 'myfunc($SIZE(n),$P(a),$P(b));'
);

The "$P("par")" syntax returns a pointer to the first element and the other elements are
guaranteed to lie after that.

Notice that here it is possible to make many mistakes. First, $SIZE(n) must be used
instead of "n". Second, you shouldn't put any loops in this code. Third, here we encounter
a new hash key recognised by PDL::PP : the "GenericTypes" declaration tells PDL::PP to
ONLY GENERATE THE TYPELOOP FOP THE LIST OF TYPES SPECIFIED. In this case "double". This
has two advantages. Firstly the size of the compiled code is reduced vastly, secondly if
non-double arguments are passed to "myfunc()" PDL will automatically convert them to
double before passing to the external C routine and convert them back afterwards.

One can also use "Pars" to qualify the types of individual arguments. Thus one could also
write this as:

pp_def('myfunc',
Pars => 'double a(n); double [o]b(n);',
Code => 'myfunc($SIZE(n),$P(a),$P(b));'
);

The type specification in "Pars" exempts the argument from variation in the typeloop -
rather it is automatically converted too and from the type specified. This is obviously
useful in a more general example, e.g.:

void myfunc(int n,float *v1,long *v2);

pp_def('myfunc',
Pars => 'float a(n); long [o]b(n);',
GenericTypes => ['F'],
Code => 'myfunc($SIZE(n),$P(a),$P(b));'
);

Note we still use "GenericTypes" to reduce the size of the type loop, obviously PP could
in principle spot this and do it automatically though the code has yet to attain that
level of sophistication!

Finally note when types are converted automatically one MUST use the "[o]" qualifier for
output variables or you hard one changes will get optimised away by PP!

If you interface a large library you can automate the interfacing even further. Perl can
help you again(!) in doing this. In many libraries you have certain calling conventions.
This can be exploited. In short, you can write a little parser (which is really not
difficult in Perl) that then generates the calls to "pp_def" from parsed descriptions of
the functions in that library. For an example, please check the Slatec interface in the
"Lib" tree of the PDL distribution. If you want to check (during debugging) which calls to
PP functions your Perl code generated a little helper package comes in handy which
replaces the PP functions by identically named ones that dump their arguments to stdout.

Just say

perl -MPDL::PP::Dump myfile.pd

to see the calls to "pp_def" and friends. Try it with ops.pd and slatec.pd. If you're
interested (or want to enhance it), the source is in Basic/Gen/PP/Dump.pm

Other macros and functions in the Code section
Macros: So far we have encountered the $SIZE, $GENERIC and $P macros. Now we are going to
quickly explain the other macros that are expanded in the "Code" section of PDL::PP along
with examples of their usage.

$T The $T macro is used for type switches. This is very useful when you have to use
different external (e.g. library) functions depending on the input type of arguments.
The general syntax is

$Ttypeletters(type_alternatives)

where "typeletters" is a permutation of a subset of the letters "BSULFD" which stand
for Byte, Short, Ushort, etc. and "type_alternatives" are the expansions when the type
of the PP operation is equal to that indicated by the respective letter. Let's
illustrate this incomprehensible description by an example. Assuming you have two C
functions with prototypes

void float_func(float *in, float *out);
void double_func(double *in, double *out);

which do basically the same thing but one accepts float and the other double pointers.
You could interface them to PDL by defining a generic function "foofunc" (which will
call the correct function depending on the type of the transformation):

pp_def('foofunc',
Pars => ' a(n); [o] b();',
Code => ' $TFD(float_func,double_func) ($P(a),$P(b));'
GenericTypes => [qw(F D)],
);

Please note that you can't say

Code => ' $TFD(float,double)_func ($P(a),$P(b));'

since the $T macro expands with trailing spaces, analogously to C preprocessor macros.
The slightly longer form illustrated above is correct. If you really want brevity, you
can of course do

'$TBSULFD('.(join ',',map {"long_identifier_name_$_"}
qw/byt short unseigned lounge flotte dubble/).');'

$PP
The $PP macro is used for a so called physical pointer access. The physical refers to
some internal optimisations of PDL (for those who are familiar with the PDL core we are
talking about the vaffine optimisations). This macro is mainly for internal use and you
shouldn't need to use it in any of your normal code.

$COMP (and the "OtherPars" section)
The $COMP macro is used to access non-pdl values in the code section. Its name is
derived from the implementation of transformations in PDL. The variables you can refer
to using $COMP are members of the ``compiled'' structure that represents the PDL
transformation in question but does not yet contain any information about dimensions
(for further details check PDL::Internals). However, you can treat $COMP just as a
black box without knowing anything about the implementation of transformations in PDL.
So when would you use this macro? Its main usage is to access values of arguments that
are declared in the "OtherPars" section of a "pp_def" definition. But then you haven't
heard about the "OtherPars" key yet?! Let's have another example that illustrates
typical usage of both new features:

pp_def('pnmout',
Pars => 'a(m)',
OtherPars => "char* fd",
GenericTypes => [qw(B U S L)],
Code => 'PerlIO *fp;
IO *io;

io = GvIO(gv_fetchpv($COMP(fd),FALSE,SVt_PVIO));
if (!io || !(fp = IoIFP(io)))
croak("Can\'t figure out FP");

if (PerlIO_write(fp,$P(a),len) != len)
croak("Error writing pnm file");
');

This function is used to write data from a pdl to a file. The file descriptor is passed
as a string into this function. This parameter does not go into the "Pars" section
since it cannot be usefully treated like a pdl but rather into the aptly named
"OtherPars" section. Parameters in the "OtherPars" section follow those in the "Pars"
section when invoking the function, i.e.

open FILE,">out.dat" or die "couldn't open out.dat";
pnmout($pdl,'FILE');

When you want to access this parameter inside the code section you have to tell PP by
using the $COMP macro, i.e. you write "$COMP(fd)" as in the example. Otherwise PP
wouldn't know that the "fd" you are referring to is the same as that specified in the
"OtherPars" section.

Another use for the "OtherPars" section is to set a named dimension in the signature.
Let's have an example how that is done:

pp_def('setdim',
Pars => '[o] a(n)',
OtherPars => 'int ns => n',
Code => 'loop(n) %{ $a() = n; %}',
);

This says that the named dimension "n" will be initialised from the value of the other
parameter "ns" which is of integer type (I guess you have realised that we use the
"CType From => named_dim" syntax). Now you can call this function in the usual way:

setdim(($a=null),5);
print $a;
[ 0 1 2 3 4 ]

Admittedly this function is not very useful but it demonstrates how it works. If you
call the function with an existing pdl and you don't need to explicitly specify the
size of "n" since PDL::PP can figure it out from the dimensions of the non-null pdl. In
that case you just give the dimension parameter as "-1":

$a = hist($b);
setdim($a,-1);

That should do it.

The only PP function that we have used in the examples so far is "loop". Additionally,
there are currently two other functions which are recognised in the "Code" section:

threadloop
As we heard above the signature of a PP defined function defines the dimensions of all
the pdl arguments involved in a primitive operation. However, you often call the
functions that you defined with PP with pdls that have more dimensions than those
specified in the signature. In this case the primitive operation is performed on all
subslices of appropriate dimensionality in what is called a thread loop (see also
overview above and PDL::Indexing). Assuming you have some notion of this concept you
will probably appreciate that the operation specified in the code section should be
optimised since this is the tightest loop inside a thread loop. However, if you revisit
the example where we define the "pnmout" function, you will quickly realise that looking
up the "IO" file descriptor in the inner thread loop is not very efficient when writing
a pdl with many rows. A better approach would be to look up the "IO" descriptor once
outside the thread loop and use its value then inside the tightest thread loop. This is
exactly where the "threadloop" function comes in handy. Here is an improved definition
of "pnmout" which uses this function:

pp_def('pnmout',
Pars => 'a(m)',
OtherPars => "char* fd",
GenericTypes => [qw(B U S L)],
Code => 'PerlIO *fp;
IO *io;
int len;

io = GvIO(gv_fetchpv($COMP(fd),FALSE,SVt_PVIO));
if (!io || !(fp = IoIFP(io)))
croak("Can\'t figure out FP");

len = $SIZE(m) * sizeof($GENERIC());

threadloop %{
if (PerlIO_write(fp,$P(a),len) != len)
croak("Error writing pnm file");
%}
');

This works as follows. Normally the C code you write inside the "Code" section is placed
inside a thread loop (i.e. PP generates the appropriate wrapping XS code around it).
However, when you explicitly use the "threadloop" function, PDL::PP recognises this and
doesn't wrap your code with an additional thread loop. This has the effect that code you
write outside the thread loop is only executed once per transformation and just the code
with in the surrounding "%{ ... %}" pair is placed within the tightest thread loop. This
also comes in handy when you want to perform a decision (or any other code, especially
CPU intensive code) only once per thread, i.e.

pp_addhdr('
#define RAW 0
#define ASCII 1
');
pp_def('do_raworascii',
Pars => 'a(); b(); [o]c()',
OtherPars => 'int mode',
Code => ' switch ($COMP(mode)) {
case RAW:
threadloop %{
/* do raw stuff */
%}
break;
case ASCII:
threadloop %{
/* do ASCII stuff */
%}
break;
default:
croak("unknown mode");
}'
);

types
The types function works similar to the $T macro. However, with the "types" function the
code in the following block (delimited by "%{" and "%}" as usual) is executed for all
those cases in which the datatype of the operation is any of the types represented by
the letters in the argument to "type", e.g.

Code => '...

types(BSUL) %{
/* do integer type operation */
%}
types(FD) %{
/* do floating point operation */
%}
...'

The RedoDimsCode Section
The "RedoDimsCode" key is an optional key that is used to compute dimensions of piddles at
runtime in case the standard rules for computing dimensions from the signature are not
sufficient. The contents of the "RedoDimsCode" entry is interpreted in the same way that
the Code section is interpreted-- i.e., PP macros are expanded and the result is
interpreted as C code. The purpose of the code is to set the size of some dimensions that
appear in the signature. Storage allocation and threadloops and so forth will be set up as
if the computed dimension had appeared in the signature. In your code, you first compute
the desired size of a named dimension in the signature according to your needs and then
assign that value to it via the $SIZE() macro.

As an example, consider the following situation. You are interfacing an external library
routine that requires an temporary array for workspace to be passed as an argument. Two
input data arrays that are passed are p(m) and x(n). The output data array is y(n). The
routine requires a workspace array with a length of n+m*m, and you'd like the storage
created automatically just like it would be for any piddle flagged with [t] or [o]. What
you'd like is to say something like

pp_def( "myexternalfunc",
Pars => " p(m); x(n); [o] y; [t] work(n+m*m); ", ...

but that won't work, because PP can't interpret expressions with arithmetic in the
signature. Instead you write

pp_def( "myexternalfunc",
Pars => " p(m); x(n); [o] y; [t] work(wn); ",
RedoDimsCode => "
int im = $PDL(p)->dims[0];
int in = $PDL(x)->dims[0];
int min = in + im * im;
int inw = $PDL(work)->dims[0];
$SIZE(wn) = inw >= min ? inw : min; ",
Code => "
externalfunc($P(p),$P(x),$SIZE(m),$SIZE(n),$P(work));
";)

This code works as follows: The macro $PDL(p) expands to a pointer to the pdl struct for
the piddle p. You don't want a pointer to the data ( ie $P ) in this case, because you
want to access the methods for the piddle on the C level. You get the first dimension of
each of the piddles and store them in integers. Then you compute the minimum length the
work array can be. If the user sent a piddle "work" with sufficient storage, then leave it
alone. If the user sent, say a null pdl, or no pdl at all, then the size of wn will be
zero and you reset it to the minimum value. Before the code in the Code section is
executed PP will create the proper storage for "work" if it does not exist. Note that you
only took the first dimension of "p" and "x" because the user may have sent piddles with
extra threading dimensions. Of course, the temporary piddle "work" (note the [t] flag)
should not be given any thread dimensions anyway.

You can also use "RedoDimsCode" to set the dimension of a piddle flagged with [o]. In this
case you set the dimensions for the named dimension in the signature using $SIZE() as in
the preceeding example. However, because the piddle is flagged with [o] instead of [t],
threading dimensions will be added if required just as if the size of the dimension were
computed from the signature according to the usual rules. Here is an example from
PDL::Math

pp_def("polyroots",
Pars => 'cr(n); ci(n); [o]rr(m); [o]ri(m);',
RedoDimsCode => 'int sn = $PDL(cr)->dims[0]; $SIZE(m) = sn-1;',

The input piddles are the real and imaginary parts of complex coefficients of a
polynomial. The output piddles are real and imaginary parts of the roots. There are "n"
roots to an "n"th order polynomial and such a polynomial has "n+1" coefficients (the
zeoreth through the "n"th). In this example, threading will work correctly. That is, the
first dimension of the output piddle with have its dimension adjusted, but other threading
dimensions will be assigned just as if there were no "RedoDimsCode".

Typemap handling in the "OtherPars" section
The "OtherPars" section discussed above is very often absolutely crucial when you
interface external libraries with PDL. However in many cases the external libraries either
use derived types or pointers of various types.

The standard way to handle this in Perl is to use a "typemap" file. This is discussed in
some detail in perlxs in the standard Perl documentation. In PP the functionality is very
similar, so you can create a "typemap" file in the directory where your PP file resides
and when it is built it is automatically read in to figure out the appropriate translation
between the C type and Perl's built-in type.

That said, there are a couple of important differences from the general handling of types
in XS. The first, and probably most important, is that at the moment pointers to types are
not allowed in the "OtherPars" section. To get around this limitation you must use the
"IV" type (thanks to Judd Taylor for pointing out that this is necessary for portability).

It is probably best to illustrate this with a couple of code-snippets:

For instance the "gsl_spline_init" function has the following C declaration:

int gsl_spline_init(gsl_spline * spline,
const double xa[], const double ya[], size_t size);

Clearly the "xa" and "ya" arrays are candidates for being passed in as piddles and the
"size" argument is just the length of these piddles so that can be handled by the
"$SIZE()" macro in PP. The problem is the pointer to the "gsl_spline" type. The natural
solution would be to write an "OtherPars" declaration of the form

OtherPars => 'gsl_spline *spl'

and write a short "typemap" file which handled this type. This does not work at present
however! So what you have to do is to go around the problem slightly (and in some ways
this is easier too!):

The solution is to declare "spline" in the "OtherPars" section using an "Integer Value",
"IV". This hides the nature of the variable from PP and you then need to (well to avoid
compiler warnings at least!) perform a type cast when you use the variable in your code.
Thus "OtherPars" should take the form:

OtherPars => 'IV spl'

and when you use it in the code you will write

INT2PTR(gsl_spline *, $COMP(spl))

where the Perl API macro "INT2PTR" has been used to handle the pointer cast to avoid
compiler warnings and problems for machines with mixed 32bit and 64bit Perl
configurations. Putting this together as Andres Jordan has done (with the modification
using "IV" by Judd Taylor) in the "gsl_interp.pd" in the distribution source you get:

pp_def('init_meat',
Pars => 'double x(n); double y(n);',
OtherPars => 'IV spl',
Code =>'
gsl_spline_init,( INT2PTR(gsl_spline *, $COMP(spl)), $P(x),$P(y),$SIZE(n)));'
);

where I have removed a macro wrapper call, but that would obscure the discussion.

The other minor difference as compared to the standard typemap handling in Perl, is that
the user cannot specify non-standard typemap locations or typemap filenames using the
"TYPEMAPS" option in MakeMaker... Thus you can only use a file called "typemap" and/or the
"IV" trick above.

Other useful PP keys in data operation definitions
You have already heard about the "OtherPars" key. Currently, there are not many other keys
for a data operation that will be useful in normal (whatever that is) PP programming. In
fact, it would be interesting to hear about a case where you think you need more than what
is provided at the moment. Please speak up on one of the PDL mailing lists. Most other
keys recognised by "pp_def" are only really useful for what we call slice operations (see
also above).

One thing that is strongly being planned is variable number of arguments, which will be a
little tricky.

An incomplete list of the available keys:

Inplace
Setting this key marks the routine as working inplace - ie the input and output
piddles are the same. An example is "$a->inplace->sqrt()" (or "sqrt(inplace($a))").

Inplace => 1
Use when the routine is a unary function, such as "sqrt".

Inplace => ['a']
If there are more than one input piddles, specify the name of the one that can be
changed inplace using an array reference.

Inplace => ['a','b']
If there are more than one output piddle, specify the name of the input piddle and
output piddle in a 2-element array reference. This probably isn't needed, but left
in for completeness.

If bad values are being used, care must be taken to ensure the propagation of the
badflag when inplace is being used; consider this excerpt from Basic/Bad/bad.pd:

pp_def('replacebad',HandleBad => 1,
Pars => 'a(); [o]b();',
OtherPars => 'double newval',
Inplace => 1,
CopyBadStatusCode =>
'/* propogate badflag if inplace AND it has changed */
if ( a == b && $ISPDLSTATEBAD(a) )
PDL->propogate_badflag( b, 0 );

/* always make sure the output is "good" */
$SETPDLSTATEGOOD(b);
',
...

Since this routine removes all bad values, then the output piddle had its bad flag
cleared. If run inplace (so "a == b"), then we have to tell all the children of "a"
that the bad flag has been cleared (to save time we make sure that we call
"PDL->propogate_badgflag" only if the input piddle had its bad flag set).

NOTE: one idea is that the documentation for the routine could be automatically
flagged to indicate that it can be executed inplace, ie something similar to how
"HandleBad" sets "BadDoc" if it's not supplied (it's not an ideal solution).

Other PDL::PP functions to support concise package definition
So far, we have described the "pp_def" and "pp_done" functions. PDL::PP exports a few
other functions to aid you in writing concise PDL extension package definitions.

pp_addhdr

Often when you interface library functions as in the above example you have to include
additional C include files. Since the XS file is generated by PP we need some means to
make PP insert the appropriate include directives in the right place into the generated XS
file. To this end there is the "pp_addhdr" function. This is also the function to use
when you want to define some C functions for internal use by some of the XS functions
(which are mostly functions defined by "pp_def"). By including these functions here you
make sure that PDL::PP inserts your code before the point where the actual XS module
section begins and will therefore be left untouched by xsubpp (cf. perlxs and perlxstut
man pages).

A typical call would be

pp_addhdr('
#include <unistd.h> /* we need defs of XXXX */
#include "libprotos.h" /* prototypes of library functions */
#include "mylocaldecs.h" /* Local decs */

static void do_the real_work(PDL_Byte * in, PDL_Byte * out, int n)
{
/* do some calculations with the data */
}
');

This ensures that all the constants and prototypes you need will be properly included and
that you can use the internal functions defined here in the "pp_def"s, e.g.:

pp_def('barfoo',
Pars => ' a(n); [o] b(n)',
GenericTypes => ['B'],
Code => ' int ns = $SIZE(n);
do_the_real_work($P(a),$P(b),ns);
',
);

pp_addpm

In many cases the actual PP code (meaning the arguments to "pp_def" calls) is only part of
the package you are currently implementing. Often there is additional Perl code and XS
code you would normally have written into the pm and XS files which are now automatically
generated by PP. So how to get this stuff into those dynamically generated files?
Fortunately, there are a couple of functions, generally called "pp_addXXX" that assist you
in doing this.

Let's assume you have additional Perl code that should go into the generated pm-file. This
is easily achieved with the "pp_addpm" command:

pp_addpm(<<'EOD');

=head1 NAME

PDL::Lib::Mylib -- a PDL interface to the Mylib library

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This package implements an interface to the Mylib package with full
threading and indexing support (see L<PDL::Indexing>).

=cut

use PGPLOT;

=head2 use_myfunc
this function applies the myfunc operation to all the
elements of the input pdl regardless of dimensions
and returns the sum of the result
=cut

sub use_myfunc {
my $pdl = shift;

myfunc($pdl->clump(-1),($res=null));

return $res->sum;
}

EOD

pp_add_exported

You have probably got the idea. In some cases you also want to export your additional
functions. To avoid getting into trouble with PP which also messes around with the @EXPORT
array you just tell PP to add your functions to the list of exported functions:

pp_add_exported('use_myfunc gethynx');

pp_add_isa

The "pp_add_isa" command works like the the "pp_add_exported" function. The arguments to
"pp_add_isa" are added the @ISA list, e.g.

pp_add_isa(' Some::Other::Class ');

pp_bless

If your pp_def routines are to be used as object methods use "pp_bless" to specify the
package (i.e. class) to which your pp_defed methods will be added. For example,
"pp_bless('PDL::MyClass')". The default is "PDL" if this is omitted.

pp_addxs

Sometimes you want to add extra XS code of your own (that is generally not involved with
any threading/indexing issues but supplies some other functionality you want to access
from the Perl side) to the generated XS file, for example

pp_addxs('','

# Determine endianness of machine

int
isbigendian()
CODE:
unsigned short i;
PDL_Byte *b;

i = 42; b = (PDL_Byte*) (void*) &i;

if (*b == 42)
RETVAL = 0;
else if (*(b+1) == 42)
RETVAL = 1;
else
croak("Impossible - machine is neither big nor little endian!!\n");
OUTPUT:
RETVAL
');

Especially "pp_add_exported" and "pp_addxs" should be used with care. PP uses
PDL::Exporter, hence letting PP export your function means that they get added to the
standard list of function exported by default (the list defined by the export tag
``:Func''). If you use "pp_addxs" you shouldn't try to do anything that involves threading
or indexing directly. PP is much better at generating the appropriate code from your
definitions.

pp_add_boot

Finally, you may want to add some code to the BOOT section of the XS file (if you don't
know what that is check perlxs). This is easily done with the "pp_add_boot" command:

pp_add_boot(<<EOB);
descrip = mylib_initialize(KEEP_OPEN);

if (descrip == NULL)
croak("Can't initialize library");

GlobalStruc->descrip = descrip;
GlobalStruc->maxfiles = 200;
EOB

pp_export_nothing

By default, PP.pm puts all subs defined using the pp_def function into the output .pm
file's EXPORT list. This can create problems if you are creating a subclassed object where
you don't want any methods exported. (i.e. the methods will only be called using the
$object->method syntax).

For these cases you can call pp_export_nothing() to clear out the export list. Example (At
the end of the .pd file):

pp_export_nothing();
pp_done();

pp_core_importList

By default, PP.pm puts the 'use Core;' line into the output .pm file. This imports Core's
exported names into the current namespace, which can create problems if you are over-
riding one of Core's methods in the current file. You end up getting messages like
"Warning: sub sumover redefined in file subclass.pm" when running the program.

For these cases the pp_core_importList can be used to change what is imported from
Core.pm. For example:

pp_core_importList('()')

This would result in

use Core();

being generated in the output .pm file. This would result in no names being imported from
Core.pm. Similarly, calling

pp_core_importList(' qw/ barf /')

would result in

use Core qw/ barf/;

being generated in the output .pm file. This would result in just 'barf' being imported
from Core.pm.

pp_setversion

I am pretty sure that this allows you to simultaneously set the .pm and .xs files'
versions, thus avoiding unnecessary version-skew between the two. To use this, simply have
the following line at some point in your .pd file:

pp_setversion('0.0.3');

However, don't use this if you use Module::Build::PDL. See that module's documentation for
details.

pp_deprecate_module

If a particular module is deemed obsolete, this function can be used to mark it as
deprecated. This has the effect of emitting a warning when a user tries to "use" the
module. The generated POD for this module also carries a deprecation notice. The
replacement module can be passed as an argument like this:

pp_deprecate_module( infavor => "PDL::NewNonDeprecatedModule" );

Note that function affects only the runtime warning and the POD.

Making your PP function "private"

Let's say that you have a function in your module called PDL::foo that uses the PP
function "bar_pp" to do the heavy lifting. But you don't want to advertise that "bar_pp"
exists. To do this, you must move your PP function to the top of your module file, then
call

pp_export_nothing()

to clear the "EXPORT" list. To ensure that no documentation (even the default PP docs) is
generated, set

Doc => undef

and to prevent the function from being added to the symbol table, set

PMFunc => ''

in your pp_def declaration (see Image2D.pd for an example). This will effectively make
your PP function "private." However, it is always accessible via PDL::bar_pp due to Perl's
module design. But making it private will cause the user to go very far out of his or her
way to use it, so he or she shoulders the consequences!

Slice operation

The slice operation section of this manual is provided using dataflow and lazy evaluation:
when you need it, ask Tjl to write it. a delivery in a week from when I receive the email
is 95% probable and two week delivery is 99% probable.

And anyway, the slice operations require a much more intimate knowledge of PDL internals
than the data operations. Furthermore, the complexity of the issues involved is
considerably higher than that in the average data operation. If you would like to convince
yourself of this fact take a look at the Basic/Slices/slices.pd file in the PDL
distribution :-). Nevertheless, functions generated using the slice operations are at the
heart of the index manipulation and dataflow capabilities of PDL.

Also, there are a lot of dirty issues with virtual piddles and vaffines which we shall
entirely skip here.

Slices and bad values
Slice operations need to be able to handle bad values (if support is compiled into PDL).
The easiest thing to do is look at Basic/Slices/slices.pd to see how this works.

Along with "BadCode", there are also the "BadBackCode" and "BadRedoDimsCode" keys for
"pp_def". However, any "EquivCPOffsCode" should not need changing, since any changes are
absorbed into the definition of the "$EQUIVCPOFFS()" macro (i.e. it is handled
automatically by PDL::PP>.

A few notes on writing a slicing routine...
The following few paragraphs describe writing of a new slicing routine ('range'); any
errors are CED's. (--CED 26-Aug-2002)

Handling of "warn" and "barf" in PP Code

For printing warning messages or aborting/dieing, you can call "warn" or "barf" from PP
code. However, you should be aware that these calls have been redefined using C
preprocessor macros to "PDL->barf" and "PDL->warn". These redefinitions are in place to
keep you from inadvertently calling perl's "warn" or "barf" directly, which can cause
segfaults during pthreading (i.e. processor multi-threading).

PDL's own versions of "barf" and "warn" will queue-up warning or barf messages until after
pthreading is completed, and then call the perl versions of these routines.

See PDL::ParallelCPU for more information on pthreading.

USEFUL ROUTINES

The PDL "Core" structure, defined in Basic/Core/pdlcore.h.PL, contains pointers to a
number of routines that may be useful to you. The majority of these routines deal with
manipulating piddles, but some are more general:

PDL->qsort_B( PDL_Byte *xx, int a, int b )
Sort the array "xx" between the indices "a" and "b". There are also versions for the
other PDL datatypes, with postfix "_S", "_U", "_L", "_F", and "_D". Any module using
this must ensure that "PDL::Ufunc" is loaded.

PDL->qsort_ind_B( PDL_Byte *xx, int *ix, int a, int b )
As for "PDL->qsort_B", but this time sorting the indices rather than the data.

The routine "med2d" in Lib/Image2D/image2d.pd shows how such routines are used.

MAKEFILES FOR PP FILES

If you are going to generate a package from your PP file (typical file extensions are
".pd" or ".pp" for the files containing PP code) it is easiest and safest to leave
generation of the appropriate commands to the Makefile. In the following we will outline
the typical format of a Perl Makefile to automatically build and install your package from
a description in a PP file. Most of the rules to build the xs, pm and other required files
from the PP file are already predefined in the PDL::Core::Dev package. We just have to
tell MakeMaker to use it.

In most cases you can define your Makefile like

# Makefile.PL for a package defined by PP code.

use PDL::Core::Dev; # Pick up development utilities
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;

$package = ["mylib.pd",Mylib,PDL::Lib::Mylib];
%hash = pdlpp_stdargs($package);
$hash{OBJECT} .= ' additional_Ccode$(OBJ_EXT) ';
$hash{clean}->{FILES} .= ' todelete_Ccode$(OBJ_EXT) ';
$hash{'VERSION_FROM'} = 'mylib.pd';
WriteMakefile(%hash);

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

Here, the list in $package is: first: PP source file name, then the prefix for the
produced files and finally the whole package name. You can modify the hash in whatever
way you like but it would be reasonable to stay within some limits so that your package
will continue to work with later versions of PDL.

If you don't want to use prepackaged arguments, here is a generic Makefile.PL that you can
adapt for your own needs:

# Makefile.PL for a package defined by PP code.

use PDL::Core::Dev; # Pick up development utilities
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;

WriteMakefile(
'NAME' => 'PDL::Lib::Mylib',
'VERSION_FROM' => 'mylib.pd',
'TYPEMAPS' => [&PDL_TYPEMAP()],
'OBJECT' => 'mylib$(OBJ_EXT) additional_Ccode$(OBJ_EXT)',
'PM' => { 'Mylib.pm' => '$(INST_LIBDIR)/Mylib.pm'},
'INC' => &PDL_INCLUDE(), # add include dirs as required by your lib
'LIBS' => [''], # add link directives as necessary
'clean' => {'FILES' =>
'Mylib.pm Mylib.xs Mylib$(OBJ_EXT)
additional_Ccode$(OBJ_EXT)'},
);

# Add genpp rule; this will invoke PDL::PP on our PP file
# the argument is an array reference where the array has three string elements:
# arg1: name of the source file that contains the PP code
# arg2: basename of the xs and pm files to be generated
# arg3: name of the package that is to be generated
sub MY::postamble { pdlpp_postamble(["mylib.pd",Mylib,PDL::Lib::Mylib]); }

To make life even easier PDL::Core::Dev defines the function "pdlpp_stdargs" that returns
a hash with default values that can be passed (either directly or after appropriate
modification) to a call to WriteMakefile. Currently, "pdlpp_stdargs" returns a hash where
the keys are filled in as follows:

(
'NAME' => $mod,
'TYPEMAPS' => [&PDL_TYPEMAP()],
'OBJECT' => "$pref\$(OBJ_EXT)",
PM => {"$pref.pm" => "\$(INST_LIBDIR)/$pref.pm"},
MAN3PODS => {"$src" => "\$(INST_MAN3DIR)/$mod.\$(MAN3EXT)"},
'INC' => &PDL_INCLUDE(),
'LIBS' => [''],
'clean' => {'FILES' => "$pref.xs $pref.pm $pref\$(OBJ_EXT)"},
)

Here, $src is the name of the source file with PP code, $pref the prefix for the generated
.pm and .xs files and $mod the name of the extension module to generate.

INTERNALS

The internals of the current version consist of a large table which gives the rules
according to which things are translated and the subs which implement these rules.

Later on, it would be good to make the table modifiable by the user so that different
things may be tried.

[Meta comment: here will hopefully be more in the future; currently, your best bet will be
to read the source code :-( or ask on the list (try the latter first) ]

Appendix A: Some keys recognised by PDL::PP

Unless otherwise specified, the arguments are strings. Keys marked with (bad) are only
used if bad-value support is compiled into PDL.

Pars
define the signature of your function

OtherPars
arguments which are not pdls. Default: nothing. This is a semi-colon separated list of
arguments, e.g., "OtherPars=>'int k; double value; char* fd'". See $COMP(x) and also
the same entry in Appendix B.

Code
the actual code that implements the functionality; several PP macros and PP functions
are recognised in the string value

HandleBad (bad)
If set to 1, the routine is assumed to support bad values and the code in the BadCode
key is used if bad values are present; it also sets things up so that the "$ISBAD()"
etc macros can be used. If set to 0, cause the routine to print a warning if any of
the input piddles have their bad flag set.

BadCode (bad)
Give the code to be used if bad values may be present in the input piddles. Only used
if "HandleBad => 1".

GenericTypes
An array reference. The array may contain any subset of the one-character strings `B',
`S', `U', `L', `Q', `F' and `D', which specify which types your operation will accept.
The meaning of each type is:

B - signed byte (i.e. signed char)
S - signed short (two-byte integer)
U - unsigned short
L - signed long (four-byte integer, int on 32 bit systems)
Q - signed long long (eight byte integer)
F - float
D - double

This is very useful (and important!) when interfacing an external library. Default:
[qw/B S U L Q F D/]

Inplace
Mark a function as being able to work inplace.

Inplace => 1 if Pars => 'a(); [o]b();'
Inplace => ['a'] if Pars => 'a(); b(); [o]c();'
Inplace => ['a','b'] if Pars => 'a(); b(); [o]c(); [o]d();'

If bad values are being used, care must be taken to ensure the propagation of the
badflag when inplace is being used; for instance see the code for "replacebad" in
Basic/Bad/bad.pd.

Doc Used to specify a documentation string in Pod format. See PDL::Doc for information on
PDL documentation conventions. Note: in the special case where the PP 'Doc' string is
one line this is implicitly used for the quick reference AND the documentation!

If the Doc field is omitted PP will generate default documentation (after all it knows
about the Signature).

If you really want the function NOT to be documented in any way at this point (e.g.
for an internal routine, or because you are doing it elsewhere in the code) explicitly
specify "Doc=>undef".

BadDoc (bad)
Contains the text returned by the "badinfo" command (in "perldl") or the "-b" switch
to the "pdldoc" shell script. In many cases, you will not need to specify this, since
the information can be automatically created by PDL::PP. However, as befits computer-
generated text, it's rather stilted; it may be much better to do it yourself!

NoPthread
Optional flag to indicate the PDL function should not use processor threads (i.e.
pthreads or POSIX threads) to split up work across mutliple CPU cores. This option is
typically set to 1 if the underlying PDL function is not threadsafe. If this option
isn't present, then the function is assumed to be threadsafe. This option only applies
if PDL has been compiled with POSIX threads enabled.

PMCode
PDL functions allow you to pass in a piddle into which you want the output saved. This
is handy because you can allocate an output piddle once and reuse it many times; the
alternative would be for PDL to create a new piddle each time, which may waste compute
cycles or, more likely, RAM. This added flexibility comes at the cost of more
complexity: PDL::PP has to write functions that are smart enough to count the
arguments passed to it and create new piddles on the fly, but only if you want them.

PDL::PP is smart enough to do that, but there are restrictions on argument order and
the like. If you want a more flexible function, you can write your own Perl-side
wrapper and specify it in the PMCode key. The string that you supply must (should)
define a Perl function with a name that matches what you gave to pp_def in the first
place. When you wish to eventually invoke the PP-generated function, you will need to
supply all piddles in the exact order specified in the signature: output piddles are
not optional, and the PP-generated function will not return anything. The obfuscated
name that you will call is _<funcname>_int.

I believe this documentation needs further clarification, but this will have to do.
:-(

PMFunc
When pp_def generates functions, it typically defines them in the PDL package. Then,
in the .pm file that it generates for your module, it typically adds a line that
essentially copies that function into your current package's symbol table with code
that looks like this:

*func_name = \&PDL::func_name;

It's a little bit smarter than that (it knows when to wrap that sort of thing in a
BEGIN block, for example, and if you specified something different for pp_bless), but
that's the gist of it. If you don't care to import the function into your current
package's symbol table, you can specify

PMFunc => '',

PMFunc has no other side-effects, so you could use it to insert arbitrary Perl code
into your module if you like. However, you should use pp_addpm if you want to add Perl
code to your module.

Appendix B: PP macros and functions

Macros
Macros labeled by (bad) are only used if bad-value support is compiled into PDL.

$variablename_from_sig()
access a pdl (by its name) that was specified in the signature

$COMP(x)
access a value in the private data structure of this transformation (mainly used to
use an argument that is specified in the "OtherPars" section)

$SIZE(n)
replaced at runtime by the actual size of a named dimension (as specified in the
signature)

$GENERIC()
replaced by the C type that is equal to the runtime type of the operation

$P(a) a pointer access to the PDL named "a" in the signature. Useful for interfacing to C
functions

$PP(a) a physical pointer access to pdl "a"; mainly for internal use

$TXXX(Alternative,Alternative)
expansion alternatives according to runtime type of operation, where XXX is some
string that is matched by "/[BSULFD+]/".

$PDL(a)
return a pointer to the pdl data structure (pdl *) of piddle "a"

$ISBAD(a()) (bad)
returns true if the value stored in "a()" equals the bad value for this piddle.
Requires "HandleBad" being set to 1.

$ISGOOD(a()) (bad)
returns true if the value stored in "a()" does not equal the bad value for this
piddle. Requires "HandleBad" being set to 1.

$SETBAD(a()) (bad)
Sets "a()" to equal the bad value for this piddle. Requires "HandleBad" being set
to 1.

functions
"loop(DIMS) %{ ... %}"
loop over named dimensions; limits are generated automatically by PP

"threadloop %{ ... %}"
enclose following code in a thread loop

"types(TYPES) %{ ... %}"
execute following code if type of operation is any of "TYPES"

Appendix C: Functions imported by PDL::PP

A number of functions are imported when you "use PDL::PP". These include functions that
control the generated C or XS code, functions that control the generated Perl code, and
functions that manipulate the packages and symbol tables into which the code is created.

Generating C and XS Code
PDL::PP's main purpose is to make it easy for you to wrap the threading engine around your
own C code, but you can do some other things, too.

pp_def
Used to wrap the threading engine around your C code. Virtually all of this document
discusses the use of pp_def.

pp_done
Indicates you are done with PDL::PP and that it should generate its .xs and .pm files
based upon the other pp_* functions that you have called. This function takes no
arguments.

pp_addxs
This lets you add XS code to your .xs file. This is useful if you want to create Perl-
accessible functions that invoke C code but cannot or should not invoke the threading
engine. XS is the standard means by which you wrap Perl-accessible C code. You can
learn more at perlxs.

pp_add_boot
This function adds whatever string you pass to the XS BOOT section. The BOOT section
is C code that gets called by Perl when your module is loaded and is useful for
automatic initialization. You can learn more about XS and the BOOT section at perlxs.

pp_addhdr
Adds pure-C code to your XS file. XS files are structured such that pure C code must
come before XS specifications. This allows you to specify such C code.

pp_boundscheck
PDL normally checks the bounds of your accesses before making them. You can turn that
on or off at runtime by setting MyPackage::set_boundscheck. This function allows you
to remove that runtime flexibility and never do bounds checking. It also returns the
current boundschecking status if called without any argumens.

NOTE: I have not found anything about bounds checking in other documentation. That
needs to be addressed.

Generating Perl Code
Many functions imported when you use PDL::PP allow you to modify the contents of the
generated .pm file. In addition to pp_def and pp_done, the role of these functions is
primarily to add code to various parts of your generated .pm file.

pp_addpm
Adds Perl code to the generated .pm file. PDL::PP actually keeps track of three
different sections of generated code: the Top, the Middle, and the Bottom. You can add
Perl code to the Middle section using the one-argument form, where the argument is the
Perl code you want to supply. In the two-argument form, the first argument is an
anonymous hash with only one key that specifies where to put the second argument,
which is the string that you want to add to the .pm file. The hash is one of these
three:

{At => 'Top'}
{At => 'Middle'}
{At => 'Bot'}

For example:

pp_addpm({At => 'Bot'}, <<POD);

=head1 Some documentation

I know I'm typing this in the middle of my file, but it'll go at
the bottom.

=cut

POD

Warning: If, in the middle of your .pd file, you put documentation meant for the
bottom of your pod, you will thoroughly confuse CPAN. On the other hand, if in the
middle of your .pd fil, you add some Perl code destined for the bottom or top of your
.pm file, you only have yourself to confuse. :-)

pp_beginwrap
Adds BEGIN-block wrapping. Certain declarations can be wrapped in BEGIN blocks, though
the default behavior is to have no such wrapping.

pp_addbegin
Sets code to be added to the top of your .pm file, even above code that you specify
with "pp_addpm({At => 'Top'}, ...)". Unlike pp_addpm, calling this overwrites whatever
was there before. Generally, you probably shouldn't use it.

Tracking Line Numbers
When you get compile errors, either from your C-like code or your Perl code, it can help
to make those errors back to the line numbers in the source file at which the error
occurred.

pp_line_numbers
Takes a line number and a (usually long) string of code. The line number should
indicate the line at which the quote begins. This is usually Perl's "__LINE__"
literal, unless you are using heredocs, in which case it is "__LINE__ + 1". The
returned string has #line directives interspersed to help the compiler report errors
on the proper line.

Modifying the Symbol Table and Export Behavior
PDL::PP usually exports all functions generated using pp_def, and usually installs them
into the PDL symbol table. However, you can modify this behavior with these functions.

pp_bless
Sets the package (symbol table) to which the XS code is added. The default is PDL,
which is generally what you want. If you use the default blessing and you create a
function myfunc, then you can do the following:

$piddle->myfunc(<args>);
PDL::myfunc($piddle, <args>);

On the other hand, if you bless your functions into another package, you cannot invoke
them as PDL methods, and must invoke them as:

MyPackage::myfunc($piddle, <args>);

Of course, you could always use the PMFunc key to add your function to the PDL symbol
table, but why do that?

pp_add_isa
Adds to the list of modules from which your module inherits. The default list is

qw(PDL::Exporter DynaLoader)

pp_core_importlist
At the top of your generated .pm file is a line that looks like this:

use PDL::Core;

You can modify that by specifying a string to pp_core_importlist. For example,

pp_core_importlist('::Blarg');

will result in

use PDL::Core::Blarg;

You can use this, for example, to add a list of symbols to import from PDL::Core. For
example:

pp_core_importlist(" ':Internal'");

will lead to the following use statement:

use PDL::Core ':Internal';

pp_setversion
Sets your module's version. The version must be consistent between the .xs and the .pm
file, and is used to ensure that your Perl's libraries do not suffer from version
skew.

pp_add_exported
Adds to the export list whatever names you give it. Functions created using pp_def
are automatically added to the list. This function is useful if you define any Perl
functions using pp_addpm or pp_addxs that you want exported as well.

pp_export_nothing
This resets the list of exported symbols to nothing. This is probably better called
"pp_export_clear", since you can add exported symbols after calling
"pp_export_nothing". When called just before calling pp_done, this ensures that your
module does not export anything, for example, if you only want programmers to use your
functions as methods.

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