See also: How do I search for a function?



PDL::Types - define fundamental PDL Datatypes


 use PDL::Types;
 $pdl = ushort( 2.0, 3.0 );
 print "The actual c type used to store ushort's is '" .
    $pdl->type->realctype() . "'\n";
 The actual c type used to store ushort's is 'unsigned short'


Internal module - holds all the PDL Type info. The type info can be accessed easily using the PDL::Type object returned by the type method.

Skip to the end of this document to find out how to change the set of types supported by PDL.

Support functions

A number of functions are available for module writers to get/process type information. These are used in various places (e.g. PDL::PP, PDL::Core) to generate the appropriate type loops, etc.


return array of keys of typehash sorted in order of type complexity


return array of pp symbols for all known types


return specified field ($fld) for specified type ($type) by querying type hash

mapfld (in_value, in_key, out_key)

Map a given source field to the corresponding target field by querying the type hash. This gives you a way to say, "Find the type whose $in_key is equal to $value, and return that type's value for $out_key. For example:

 # Does byte type use nan?
 $uses_nan = PDL::Types::mapfld(byte => 'ppforcetype', 'usenan');
 # Equivalent:
 $uses_nan = byte->usenan;
 # What is the actual C type for the value that we call 'long'?
 $type_name = PDL::Types::mapfld(long => 'convertfunc', 'realctype');
 # Equivalent:
 $type_name = long->realctype;

As you can see, the equivalent examples are much shorter and legible, so you should only use mapfld if you were given the type index (in which case the actual type is not immediately obvious):

 $type_index = 4;
 $type_name = PDL::Types::mapfld($type_index => numval, 'realctype');


return type related synonym definitions to be included in pdl.h . This routine must be updated to include new types as required. Mostly the automatic updating should take care of the vital things.


return C header text for pdl.h and pdlsimple.h.


This module declares one class - PDL::Type - objects of this class are returned by the type method of a piddle. It has several methods, listed below, which provide an easy way to access type information:

Additionally, comparison and stringification are overloaded so that you can compare and print type objects, e.g.

  $nofloat = 1 if $pdl->type < float;
  die "must be double" if $type != double;

For further examples check again the type method.


Returns the number representing this datatype (see get_datatype).


Returns one of 'PDL_B', 'PDL_S', 'PDL_US', 'PDL_L', 'PDL_IND', 'PDL_LL', 'PDL_F' or 'PDL_D'.


Returns the macro used to represent this type in C code (eg 'PDL_Long').


The letter used to represent this type in PP code code (eg 'U' for ushort).


The actual C type used to store this type.


The value returned by ctype without the 'PDL_' prefix.


The special numerical value used to represent bad values for this type. See badvalue routine in PDL::Bad for more details.


The default special numerical value used to represent bad values for this type. (You can change the value that represents bad values for each type during runtime.) See the orig_badvalue routine in PDL::Bad for more details.

Adding/removing types

You can change the types that PDL knows about by editing entries in the definition of the variable @types that appears close to the top of the file (i.e. the file from which this module was generated).

Format of a type entry

Each entry in the @types array is a hash reference. Here is an example taken from the actual code that defines the ushort type:

              identifier => 'US',
              onecharident => 'U',   # only needed if different from identifier
              pdlctype => 'PDL_Ushort',
              realctype => 'unsigned short',
              ppforcetype => 'ushort',
              usenan => 0,
              packtype => 'S*',

Before we start to explain the fields please take this important message on board: entries must be listed in order of increasing complexity. This is critical to ensure that PDL's type conversion works correctly. Basically, a less complex type will be converted to a more complex type as required.

Fields in a type entry

Each type entry has a number of required and optional entry.

A list of all the entries:

Also have a look at the entries at the top of

The syntax is not written into stone yet and might change as the concept matures.

Other things you need to do

You need to check modules that do I/O (generally in the IO part of the directory tree). In the future we might add fields to type entries to automate this. This requires changes to those IO modules first though.

You should also make sure that any type macros in PP files (i.e. $TBSULFD...) are updated to reflect the new type. PDL::PP::Dump has a mode to check for type macros requiring updating. Do something like

    find . -name \*.pd -exec perl -Mblib=. -M'PDL::PP::Dump=typecheck' {} \;

from the PDL root directory after updating to check for such places.