Known_problems

The following issues have been reported with this version of PDL:


- SciPDL-2.4.9 for Mac OS X has not yet been released.
  Mac OS X users will need to build the new PDL by hand
  or use the SciPDL-2.4.7 release in the interim.


- The PDL build process checks for white space in the build
  directory as that is known to cause problems for some modules
  and asks you if you wish to continue [default is yes].

  NOTE: You can avoid the interactive prompts by setting the
  environment variable PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT to true (e.g., 1).


- The Perl debugger for perls 5.10.1 through 5.12+ has a new
  "feature" leading to false fails for lvalue subroutines when
  run under the debugger.  If you need to debug such code with
  an affected perl version, the work around is to use an
  intermediate temporary variable assignment as in:

    $piddle->slice('0:10') .= 100;           # original slice code
    ($tmp = $piddle->slice('0:10')) .= 100;  # work around perl -d "feature"

  The problem is understood and it is hoped that an official
  fix will become available.  NOTE: the work around is 100%
  effective---but ugly.


- Multiline q'' constructs in the pdl2 shell now work correctly
  but you'll need to avoid using the q abbreviation for quit
  in pdl2 (at least until the multiline plugin in Devel::REPL
  can be updated appropriately).  If you do get "stuck" in a q
  quit attempt, just type Ctrl-D to exit the shell.


- The demo 3d and 3d2 windows do not close (can not be closed)
  after the demo finishes.  You need to exit the perldl shell
  to have the window close.


- When you close a TriD graphics window with the frame widget
  the whole process exits including the perldl shell.


- PDL::FFTW is based on version 2 of the FFTW API.  The current
  release of the FFTW library is version 3.2.2.  To use PDL::FFTW
  you will need to install FFTW version 2.1.5, use the built-in 
  PDL::FFT routines instead, or (better yet) submit a patch to
  update PDL::FFTW to the version 3 API. 


- Extremely verbose but not particularly helpful text output from
  the configure-build-test process.


- Directory completion in the interactive PDL shells (perldl and pdl2)
  using Term::ReadLine::Perl adds a space after each directory expansion.
  To continue to complete, one must delete the space before typing <TAB>
  again.  The problem has been reported as a Term::ReadLine::Perl bug.


- PDL on Cygwin has (by default) a 300MB process memory limit which can
  cause out of memory crashes with large data sets.  See the cygwin users
  guide: http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/setup-maxmem.html for how
  to increase the memory limit.


- minimum/maximum/min/max inconsistently handle NaN values.
  NaN's for the first element of a pdl will propagate to the
  result while if the first element is a number, then the
  result will be a number.  The answer for max/min should not
  depend on the order of the input values.


- The following SourceForge bugs are outstanding at time of the
  PDL-2.4.9_002 release:

  3295544    NiceSlice parsing bug
  3294808    sever on empty piddle causes segfault
  3234141    max() fails on nan
  3161459    online docs don't link to functions in other PDL modules 
  3080505    PLplot segfaults on plshades call on OS X
  3059083    Problems with FITS header handling
  3018731    NiceSlice affects code where it should not
  2995500    perl -d chokes on lvalue functions
  2153898    default PDL build output too long
  1994584    PDL Has no signed 8-bit integer data type
  1507054    closing TriD window kills perldl shell
  1435189    Installation with cpan2rpm
  1205359    PGPLOT Window does not store full state info


For more information on these and other PDL issues, and for
submissions of patches (bug patches are always welcome!), 
see the PDL mailing lists. Links to archive list discussions
and how to register for the mailing lists can be found at
http://pdl.sourceforge.net/maillists/ .