[Perl] Updates mapping between PDL and MX types

[zmughal]

Description

This removes the hardcoded values and uses PDL::Type instead.

Upgrades minimum PDL dependency to PDL v2.064 which provides
the int8 (PDL: sbyte) type.

Fixes #20851.

Checklist

Essentials

Please feel free to remove inapplicable items for your PR.

• Changes are complete (i.e. I finished coding on this PR)
• To the best of my knowledge, examples are either not affected by this change, or have been fixed to be compatible with this change

[mxnet-bot]

Hey @zmughal , Thanks for submitting the PR
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[zmughal]

@sergeykolychev, I opened this PR against the v1.x branch. I was working using the Dockerfile on that branch and noticed that it does not work with whatever is checked out. Instead it runs git clone which will pull the default branch and not git clone -b v1.x.

Is there any interest in using the current checkout for the Dockerfile? I also noticed that https://hub.docker.com/r/mxnet/perl has not been updated in several years.

I also noticed that the CI is not running any particular tests for the Perl module. Edit: I see them now in Jenkins.

[sergeykolychev]

@zmughal Please make this PR against 1.9.x and you'll need to update https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/blob/v1.x/ci/docker/install/ubuntu_perl.sh to install new PDL from cpan into the CI docker.
https://jenkins.mxnet-ci.amazon-ml.com/blue/organizations/jenkins/mxnet-validation%2Funix-cpu/detail/PR-20852/2/pipeline/300

[zmughal]

@sergeykolychev, I have updated the base branch and put the commits on top of v1.9.x, though I believe there will still be some test failures.

[zmughal]

I'm investigating the failure of t/test_sparse_ndarray.t. This is due to a change between PDL v2.068_03 and v2.068_04 and showed up now because there was just a new PDL stable release today.

[zmughal]

@mxnet-bot run ci [unix-cpu, unix-gpu]

(PDL v2.071 released)

[mxnet-bot]

Jenkins CI successfully triggered : [unix-gpu, unix-cpu]

[mxnet-bot]

Jenkins CI successfully triggered : [unix-gpu, unix-cpu]

[zmughal]

@mxnet-bot run ci [unix-cpu, unix-gpu]

(PDL v2.072 released)

[mxnet-bot]

Jenkins CI successfully triggered : [unix-gpu, unix-cpu]

[zmughal]

@sergeykolychev, this PR is now ready and the tests pass.

Of note, there are some test failures with PDL v2.068_04 – v2.071 (all released in the last week), but an upgrade to PDL v2.072 (the latest now) fixes all those issues.

[zmughal]

@sergeykolychev, is there anything else you need for this PR?

[sergeykolychev]

@zmughal Merged it, hopefully further PDL development will not break AI::MXNet tests, may I contact you if this happens ?
Btw, is it possible to lock version of PDL for docker file ?

[zmughal]

@sergeykolychev, thank you!

hopefully further PDL development will not break AI::MXNet tests, may I
contact you if this happens ?

I am working on the PDL CI workflows to help prevent future breakage of
downstream soon, so that should be mitigated in the future. And yes, feel free
to ping me for anything about PDL.

Btw, is it possible to lock version of PDL for docker file ?

Yes, to set an exact version, you can use cpanm with @.

$ cpanm -q [email protected] PDL::[email protected] PDL::[email protected]

A more complete approach is to use Carton to create a snapshot file which
contains all the versions of every dependency.

Another thing that I might be able to help with is packaging MXNet's C++ part
as an Alien::* package so that it can be installed directly using a CPAN
client. It would download from the appropriate branch for the v1 API. Would
you be interested in adding support for that (in addition to building out of
this repository)? I would give you maintainership/upload bits on it and I
would help keep it up to date. And if the MXNet project ever ships pre-built
binaries for certain platforms, I can support that as well.