perldl - Simple shell for PDL

        %> perldl
        perldl> $a=sequence(1) # or any other PDL command

        %> perldl - pdlscript

        #!/usr/bin/pdl

The program perldl is a simple shell (written in perl) for interactive use of PDL. perl/PDL commands can simply be typed in - and edited if you have appropriate version of the ReadLines and ReadKeys modules installed. In that case perldl also supports a history mechanism where the last 50 commands are always stored in the file .perldl_hist in your home directory between sessions. The command CWl [number] shows you the last CWnumber commands you typed where CWnumber defaults to 20.

e.g.:

   % perldl
   ReadLines enabled
   perldl> $a = rfits "foo.fits"
   BITPIX =  -32  size = 88504 pixels
   Reading  354016 bytes
   BSCALE =  &&  BZERO =

   perldl> imag log($a+400)
   Displaying 299 x 296 image from 4.6939525604248 to 9.67116928100586 ...

-tk

Load Tk when starting the shell (the perl Tk module, which is available from CPAN must be installed). This enables readline event loop processing.

-f file

Loads the file before processing any user input. Any errors during the execution of the file are fatal.

-w

Runs with warning messages (i.e. the normal perl CW-w warnings) turned-on.

-M module

Loads the module before processing any user input. Compare corresponding CWperl switch.

-m module

Unloads the module before processing any user input.

-I directory

Adds directory to the include path. (i.e. the CW@INC array) Compare corresponding CWperl switch.

-V

Prints a summary of PDL config. This information should be included with any PDL bug report. Compare corresponding CWperl switch. A CWperldl session can be terminated with any of the commands CWquit, CWexit or the shorthands CWx or CWq.

Commands executed within CWperldl can be terminated prematurely using CWCtrl-C (or whichever key sequence sends an INT signal to the process on your terminal). Provided your PDL code does not ignore CWsigints this should throw you back at the CWperldl command prompt:

  perldl> $result = start_lengthy_computation()
   <Ctrl-C>
 Ctrl-C detected

  perldl>

•

The shell aliases CWp to be a convenient short form of CWprint, e.g.

   perldl> p ones 5,3

   [
    [1 1 1 1 1]
    [1 1 1 1 1]
    [1 1 1 1 1]
   ]

•

CWq and CWx are short-hand for CWquit.

•

CWl lists the history buffer

  perldl> l # list last 20 commands

  perldl> l 40 # list last 40 commands

•

CW? is an alias for help

  perldl> ? wpic

•

CW?? is an alias for apropos

  perldl> ?? PDL::Doc

•

help, apropos, usage and sig: all words after these commands are used verbatim and not evaluated by perl. So you can write, e.g.,

    help help

instead of

    help 'help'

If the file ~/.perldlrc is found it is sourced at start-up to load default modules, set shell variables, etc. If it is NOT found the distribution file PDL/default.perldlrc is read instead. This loads various modules considered useful by default, and which ensure compatibility with v1.11. If you don't like this and want a more streamlined set of your own favourite modules simple create your own ~/.perldlrc

To set even more local defaults the file local.perldlrc (in the current directory) is sourced if found. This lets you load modules and define subroutines for the project in the current directory.

The name is chosen specfically because it was found hidden files were NOT wanted in these circumstances.

The startup file should normally include use PDL::AutoLoader;, as many of the nicer interactive features won't work without it.

Shell variables: (Note: if you don't like the defaults change them in ~/.perldlrc)

•

$PERLDL::ESCAPE - default value '#' Any line starting with this character is treated as a shell escape. The default value is chosen because it escapes the code from the standard perl interpreter.

•

$PERLDL::PAGER - default value CWmore External program to filter the output of commands. Using CWmore prints output one screenful at a time. On Unix, setting CWpage(1) and CW$PERLDL::PAGER to CWtee -a outfile will keep a record of the output generated by subsequent perldl commands (without paging).

•

$PERLDL::PROMPT - default value 'perldl> ' Enough said But can also be set to a subroutine reference, e.g. CW$PERLDL::PROMPT = sub {join(':',(gmtime)[2,1,0]).'> '} puts the current time into the prompt.

•

$PERLDL::MULTI - default value 1 If this is set to a true value, then perldl will parse multi-line perl blocks: your input will not be executed until you finish a line with no outstanding group operators (such as quotes, blocks, parenthesis, or brackets) still active. Continuation lines have a different prompt that shows you what delimiters are still active. Note that this is not (yet!) a complete perl parser. In particular, Text::Balanced appears to be able to ignore quoting operatores like CWq/ ... / within a line, but not to be able to extend them across lines. Likewise, there is no support for the '<<' operator. Multiline conventional strings and {}, [], and () groupings are well supported.

•

$PERLDL::NO_EOF - default value 0 Protects against accidental use of ^D from the terminal. If this is set to a true value, then you can't accidentally exit perldl by typing ^D. If you set it to a value larger than 1 (and PERLDL::MULTI is set), then you can't use ^D to exit multiline commands either. If you're piping commands in from a file or pipe, this variable has no effect.

•

$HOME The user's home directory

•

$PERLDL::TERM This is the Term::ReadLine object associated with the perldl shell. It can be used by routines called from perldl if your command is interactive. A useful idiom for developing perldl scripts or editing functions on-line is

      perldl> # emacs script &
                      -- add perldl code to script and save the file
      perldl> do 'script'

-- substitute your favourite window-based editor for 'emacs' (you may also need to change the '&' on non-Unix systems).

Running do 'script' again updates any variables and function definitions from the current version of 'script'.

The variable CW@PERLDL::AUTO is a simple list of perl code strings and/or code reference. It is used to define code to be executed automatically every time the user enters a new line.

A simple example would be to print the time of each command:

 perldl> push @PERLDL::AUTO,'print scalar(gmtime),"\n"'

 perldl> print zeroes(3,3)
 Sun May  3 04:49:05 1998

 [
  [0 0 0]
  [0 0 0]
  [0 0 0]
 ]

 perldl> print "Boo"
 Sun May  3 04:49:18 1998
 Boo
 perldl>

Or to make sure any changes in the file 'local.perldlrc' are always picked up :-

 perldl> push @PERLDL::AUTO,"do 'local.perldlrc'"

This code can of course be put *in* 'local.perldlrc', but be careful :-) [Hint: add CWunless ($started++) to above to ensure it only gets done once!]

Another example application is as a hook for Autoloaders (e.g. PDL::AutoLoader) to add code too which allows them to automatically re-scan their files for changes. This is extremely convenient at the interactive command line. Since this hook is only in the shell it imposes no inefficiency on PDL scripts.

Finally note this is a very powerful facility - which means it should be used with caution!

PDL scripts are just perl scripts that happen to use PDL (and possibly PDL::NiceSlice). But for the truly lazy, perldl can be invokes as a script interpreter. Because perldl is itself an interpreted perl script, most unices won't allow you to say #!/usr/bin/perldl at the top of your script.

Instead, say #!/usr/bin/pdl and your script will be executed exactly as if you typed it, line-by-line, into the perldl shell.

WARNING: perldl executes scripts slightly differently than perl would, and its behavior is dependent on your own quirky configuration. Use with caution.

NOTE: This feature is used by default by PDL::NiceSlice. See below for more about slicing at the CWperldl prompt

In some cases, it is convenient to process commands before they are sent to perl for execution. For example, this is the case where the shell is being presented to people unfamiliar with perl but who wish to take advantage of commands added locally (eg by automatically quoting arguments to certain commands).

*NOTE*: The preprocessing interface has changed from earlier versions! The old way using CW$PERLDL::PREPROCESS will still work but is strongly deprecated and might go away in the future.

You can enable preprocessing by registering a filter with the CWpreproc_add function. CWpreproc_add takes one argument which is the filter to be installed. A filter is a Perl code reference (usually set in a local configuration file) that will be called, with the current command string as argument, just prior to the string being executed by the shell. The modified string should be returned. Note that you can make CWperldl completely unusable if you fail to return the modified string; quitting is then your only option.

Filters can be removed from the preprocessing pipeline by calling CWpreproc_del with the filter to be removed as argument. To find out if a filter is currently installed in the preprocessing pipeline use CWpreproc_registered:

  perldl> preproc_add $myfilter unless preproc_registered $myfilter;

Previous versions of CWperldl used the variable CW$PERLDL::PREPROCESS. This will still work but should be avoided. Please change your scripts to use the CWpreproc_add etc functions.

The following code would check for a call to function 'mysub' and bracket arguments with qw.

 $filter = preproc_add sub {
   my $str = shift;
   $str =~ s/^\s+//;  # Strip leading space
   if ($str =~ /^mysub/) {
     my ($command, $arguments) = split(/\s+/,$str, 2);
     $str = "$command qw( $arguments )" 
       if (defined $arguments && $arguments !~ /^qw/);
   };
   # Return the input string, modified as required
   return $str;
 };

This would convert:

  perldl> mysub arg1 arg2

to

  perldl> mysub qw( arg1 arg2 )

which Perl will understand as a list. Obviously, a little more effort is required to check for cases where the caller has supplied a normal list (and so does not require automatic quoting) or variable interpolation is required.

You can remove this preprocessor using the CWpreproc_del function which takes one argument (the filter to be removed, it must be the same coderef that was returned from a previous CWpreproc_add call):

  perldl> preproc_del $filter;

An example of actual usage can be found in the CWperldl script. Look at the function CWtrans to see how the niceslicing preprocessor is enabled/disabled. PDL::NiceSlice introduces a more convenient slicing syntax for piddles. In current versions of CWperldl niceslicing is enabled by default (if the required CPAN modules are installed on your machine).

At startup CWperldl will let you know if niceslicing is enabled. The startup message will contain info to this end, something like this:

   perlDL shell v1.XX
    PDL comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. For details, see the file
    'COPYING' in the PDL distribution. This is free software and you
    are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions, see
    the same file for details.
   ReadLines, NiceSlice  enabled
   Reading /home/csoelle/.perldlrc...
   Type 'demo' for online demos
   Loaded PDL v2.XX

When you get such a message that indicates CWNiceSlice is enabled you can use the enhanced slicing syntax:

  perldl> $a = sequence 10;
  perldl> p $a(3:8:2)

For details consult PDL::NiceSlice.

PDL::NiceSlice installs a filter in the preprocessing pipeline (see above) to enable the enhanced slicing syntax. You can use a few commands in the CWperldl shell to switch this preprocessing on or off and also explicitly check the substitutions that the NiceSlice filter makes.

You can switch the PDL::NiceSlice filter on and off by typing

  perldl> trans # switch niceslicing on

and

  perldl> notrans # switch niceslicing off

respectively. The filter is on by default.

To see how your commands are translated switch reporting on:

  perldl> report 1;
  perldl> p $a(3:8:2)
 processed p $a->nslice([3,8,2])
 [3 5 7]

Similarly, switch reporting off as needed

  perldl> report 0;
  perldl>  p $a(3:8:2)
 [3 5 7]

Reporting is off by default.