PDL (the "Perl Data Language") gives standard Perl the ability to compactly store and speedily manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing.

PDL turns perl in to a free, array-oriented, numerical language similar to (but, we believe, better than) such commerical packages as IDL and MatLab. One can write simple perl expressions to manipulate entire numerical arrays all at once.

A simple interactive shell (perldl) is provided for use from the command line and a module (PDL) for use in perl scripts.

The PDL distribution for Perl provides extensive numerical and semi-numerical functionality with support for two- and three-dimensional visualisation as well as a variety of I/O formats.