Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Stephen Lewis <[email protected]> · Thu, 27 Oct 2005 09:07:38 -0700

A very interesting thread...

I think we should move towards making all the ASCII files XML, but

here is my background on that:

 - many of the well-used EPICS files were nasty to edit by hand: EDM

original, EDD/DM original; MEDM/DM2K; even large .DB files. The ALH

and old AR/ARR were not too bad. But consider: we had DCT; then

GDCT; now VDCT to produce .db files. ALH can generate .alhconfig.

All the display managers can do so. So only the archiver lacks a

generator function

 - consider, first, adding generator capability to the archiver (what

else needs this?)

 - replace all the unique generators in all the tools with XML-style ones

 - assuming the above generators are well modularized (!), gather

them into a separate application which takes the results of a query

on an RDB and co-generates a consistent set

 - we will also want parsers to populate an RDB from an existing XML

I notice that Apple/MacOS X is keeping lots of configuration in XML

format, for example preferences (called "plists"). They supply a

generic GUI-style editor for this. There must be other tools like

this for Linux, etc, which are themselves configurable...probably

with XML.

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System