PDL is all about the "array programming", where you do an operation to the whole ndarray, and PDL just does that thing to everything in it. So for an ndarray, $pdl += 1 really would add 1 to all the elements in it.

This is an example of the array-programming concept known these days as "broadcasting", which PDL used to slightly-confusingly call "threading".

In reply to Re^3: A list assignment gotcha (updated) by etj
in thread Not understanding 2 sentences in perldoc by Anonymous Monk

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