++ WARNING: There is absolutely no warranty for this software ++
++ package. See the file COPYING for details.                 ++

Important reading

Please check the following files for further information
*BEFORE* sending us your questions:

INSTALL 		Basic installation instructions

DEPENDENCIES		Other software that PDL relies on (and where to get it)

Release_Notes		A list of features or issues with regard to the
                        current version, always worth checking!

Known_problems	 	Check before you report problems

BUGS			How to make a bug report

perldl.conf		PDL configuration options

Basic/Pod/FAQ.pod 	The FAQ in pod format
			Try 'perldoc PDL::FAQ' after installation

Basic/Pod/QuickStart.pod
			A quick overview of PDL
			Try 'perldoc PDL::QuickStart' after installation

Basic/Pod/BadValues.pod
                        A discussion of the bad value support in PDL

DEVELOPMENT		How to participate in the development of PDL



*NOTE*  Most PDL documentation is available online within the PDL shell,
        pdl2 (or perldl).  Try the help command within the shell.



PDL -- the package
------------------
The Perl Data Language (a.k.a. PerlDL or PDL) project aims to turn perl
into an efficient numerical language for scientific computing. The PDL
module gives standard perl the ability to COMPACTLY store and SPEEDILY
manipulate the large N-dimensional data sets which are the bread and
butter of scientific computing.  e.g. $a=$b+$c can add two 2048x2048
images in only a fraction of a second.

The aim is to provide tons of useful functionality for scientific and
numeric analysis.

Check the pdl web site at http://pdl.perl.org for more information.



Installation
------------
Please read the file INSTALL for information on how to
configure and install PDL.  The Release_Notes and Known_problems
files contain important version specific information.

Once you have built PDL and either installed it or done
'make doctest', try either

	perl -Mblib Perldl2/pdl2

from within the root of the PDL tree or just

	pdl2
	
if you have installed PDL already ('make install') to get the
interactive PDL shell.  In this shell, 'help' gives you
access to PDL documentation for each function separately
('help help' for more about this) and 'demo' gives you some
basic examples of what you can do.



Bug Reports
-----------
You can check the existing PDL bugs on sourceforge at

	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=612&atid=100612

The mailing list archives can be searched/read at

	http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/pipermail/perldl/
	http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/pipermail/pdl-porters/

Questions about problems and possible bugs can be discussed
via the perldl mailing list.  This is very useful if you are
not sure what you have is a bug or not.  For example, the list
is the place to go for install problems.

If you need to post a problem report, please use the
sourceforge.net bug tracker system following the guidance
in the BUGS file:

	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=612&atid=100612



Notes
-----
Directory structure:

Basic/	   - The stuff that PDL would be no use without
Demos/     - Showcase for PDL, type demo at the perldl prompt.
Doc/       - Modules for building/using the PDL documentation database
Example/   - Sample programs using PDL
Graphics/  - The stuff that PDL needs to make pictures
IO/	   - The stuff that PDL needs to write and read strange files
Lib/	   - The stuff that PDL would still be useful without but
	       which makes PDL even more useful
Perldl2/   - The PDL shell version 2 source and development
TestTools/ - Tools for testing PDL
cygwin/    - Platform specific information
debian/    - Platform specific information
macosx/    - Platform specific information
t/         - PDL tests directory
utils/     - Utilities relating to PDL
win32/     - Platform specific information



Comments are welcome - so are volunteers to write code and documentation!
Please contact the developers mailing list pdl-porters@jach.hawaii.edu
(subscription address: pdl-porters-request@jach.hawaii.edu) with ideas
and suggestions.

  The pdl-porters team.



Compilation Reports:
--------------------
The CPAN Testers' result page provides a database showing the results
of compiling PDL and many other CPAN packages on multiple platforms.
See http://testers.cpan.org/
