Installing on Win32
===================
Simplest way to install PDL on both Strawberry Perl and ActivePerl is to use the
ppm utility.
With Strawberry Perl, installing via ppm will work only for their 32-bit builds as
their 64-bit builds don't provide a ppm utility. (On 64-bit Strawberry Perl it is,
however, still possible to install the ppm utility from CPAN ... if one wants to
go down that path.)
Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds of ActivePerl ship with the ppm utility.

For ppm installation, first up install Astro::FITS::Header and Convert::UU
by running:

  ppm install Astro-FITS-Header
  ppm install Convert-UU

Then install the OpenGL, PGPLOT and PDL modules from the sisyphusion repo by running:

    ppm install http://www.sisyphusion.tk/ppm/OpenGL.ppd
    ppm install http://www.sisyphusion.tk/ppm/PGPLOT.ppd
    ppm install http://www.sisyphusion.tk/ppm/PDL.ppd
     or, for the latest PDL developer release:
    ppm install http://www.sisyphusion.tk/ppm/PDL_dev.ppd

For 32-bit builds of perl, that will work for perl-5.8.0 onwards.
For 64-bit builds of perl, ppm packages from sisyphusion are provided only for perl
versions 5.10.0 onwards.

Note that the ActiveState ppm for PDL currently lacks some of the functionality that
is available in the above PDL ppm packages from sisyphusion.
Note also that it's best to install both OpenGL and PDL from the *same* repo - ie
either install *both* from the ActiveState repo, or install *both* from the
sisyphusion repo. (The difference being that ActiveState's OpenGL and PDL packages
are built against a dynamic freeglut library, whereas the sisyphusion ppm packages
are built against a static freeglut library.)

Having installed the sisyphusion ppm package, PLPLOT and PROJ4 support is enabled by
setting the PLPLOT_LIB and PROJ_LIB environment variables to the location of the
plplot_supp and proj_supp folders (respectively). The ppm post-install script will
terminate with a message that tells you the settings these environment variables
should take on. (If you missed the message, the two folders will be in your
perl/site/lib directory - eg, for most builds of ActivePerl the PLPLOT_LIB
environment variable would be set to C:\perl\site\lib\PDL\plplot_supp, and PROJ_LIB
would be set to C:\perl\site\lib\PDL\proj_supp.)

Installing ffmpeg will enable the creation of mp4 and animated gif files, whereby
one can turn a piddle of images into a movie.
For a demo of this feature, create an mp4 file (bounce.mp4) by running the
Example/IO/wmpeg.pl that ships with the PDL source.
The requisite ffmpeg binaries are available from a number of places, including
(at time of writing):
 http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
 http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ffmpeg
but googling for 'ffmpeg download' should turn up useful hits if those 2 links
become dead in the future.

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If you would like, instead, to build PDL from source, that's also easy!!

Certain parts of PDL (eg PDL::Slatec and PDL::Minuit) can't be built
without a fortran compiler.  In the docs that follow I call these parts
(somewhat loosely) "the fortran stuff".



To Build from Source
--------------------
1) You'll need a make utility and a compiler - dmake/MinGW provides
   best mileage.  To install them onto 32-bit ActivePerl (if you don't
   already have them) simply:

   ppm install MinGW

   Sadly, this approach won't currently work at all with 64-bit ActivePerl.
   The best way to get MinGW support with 64-bit ActivePerl is to install
   one of the "Personal Builds" of the MinGW64 compiler available from
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win64/
   and install ExtUtils::FakeConfig from CPAN. But while this is not all
   that difficult for those who are well acquainted with compilers and perl,
   it's not as straightforward as most novice programmers would like. (If
   you need to take this approach and have difficulty getting it configured,
   asking for help at somewhere like http://www.perlmonks.org is probably
   your best bet.)

   Another option with ActivePerl (both 32-bit and 64-bit) is to use an
   appropriate Microsoft Compiler. This may come at the cost of reduced
   mileage wrt "the fortran stuff" and external libraries support.

   Strawberry Perl (either 32-bit or 64-bit) is probably the easiest path to
   take, as it comes with a ready-to-go dmake utility and MinGW compiler.
   Unfortunately, its MinGW compiler does not include the MinGW fortran
   compiler - however, that fortran compiler (suitable for building "the fortran
   stuff") is readily available as a separate download that can be installed
   straight over the top of the Strawberry Perl installation. If you have
   difficulty locating that fortran compiler just ask on the Vanilla Perl
   mailing list. (See http://lists.perl.org/list/win32-vanilla.html )

2) Then, run:

   cpan -i ExtUtils::F77    # Optional - this is for "the fortran stuff".
                            # It will fail if it can't find a g77 or gfortran
                            # compiler. If using a Microsoft compiler see
                            # "Other Options" below.
                            # Note that failure here does not prevent you from
                            # from building PDL. It just means that the PDL
                            # you build will be missing "the fortran stuff".

   cpan -i PGPLOT           # Optional - for PGPLOT graphics support.
                            # This will fail if the pgplot C library can't
                            # be found.
			          # It will also fail if no Fortran compiler is
			          # found---simpler to install using ppm
			          # (see above).

   cpan -i OpenGL           # Optional, but recommended - this is for PDL's
                            # TriD support.
                            # Also available via ppm (see above) if there
                            # is any problem building.

   cpan -i PDL              # Will first install any missing pre-requisites.
                            # This should succeed, but the PDL that's built
                            # will be missing some features if any of the
                            # above 'cpan -i ..' commands failed.

If it's a developer release that you're trying to install then you'll
need to specify the full distribution path info, e.g.:

   cpan -i CHM/PDL-2.4.11_001.tar.gz



Other Options
-------------
1) Using an MS compiler and f2c instead of MinGW/g77 (for "the fortran stuff")
 The capability of building "the fortran stuff" with an MS compuiler, f2c
 and associated libraries libi77.lib and libf77.lib probably still exists
 (but none of the current PDL developers have any knowledge or experience with
 this option).

 According to mythology, if you want to use f2c you need to edit
 win32/win32f77.pl to reflect the location of f2c, the libs and the include
 file f2c.h.

 Then, you'll also need to run:
    perl Makefile.PL F77CONF=win32/win32f77.pl
 instead of simply:
    perl Makefile.PL

2) Building a "non-default" (custom) PDL
 If you don't want to accept a (basic) "default" build of PDL, download
 the source from CPAN, extract it to some location, cd to that
 location and edit (the self-documenting) perldl.conf accordingly.

 Then run, in succession:

    perl Makefile.PL
    dmake test
    dmake install

 This enables building of such extras as:
 a) PDL::IO::GD (needs the gd C library);
 b) PDL::GSL::* modules (needs the gsl C library);
 c) PDL::Graphics::PLplot (needs the plplot C library);
 d) PDL::GIS::Proj & PDL::Transform::Proj4 (needs the proj4 C library);
 e) PDL::FFTW (needs the fftw2 C library)
 f) PDL with pthreads (needs the pthreads library)

As of the release of PDL-2.4.9_010 (and later), all of this functionality is
provided by the above mentioned ppm packages from sisyphusion.


