[Bug 1182091] Re: Make TIME field directly accessible

[Ben Franksen via Core-talk <core-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Ah, yes, I agree that "virtualizing" the TIME field directly is even
better.

I am not convinced of the filter solution if it implies yet another ad-
hoc addition to channel name parsing to support `caget xx.TIME`. I
understand the temptation but I recommend against it. There is no easy
way to make such ad-hoc syntax extensions in a modular way and the more
we add the harder it gets to make the next change. This approach clearly
doesn't scale in the long run. I find it cleaner to add a special
processing phase for dbCommon fields. Once this is implemented it can
easily be re-used for other extensions.

Also, converting timestamps to human readable (or any other) formats is
clearly a task that clients are better prepared to do; IMO we should not
bother the server with that.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of EPICS
Core Developers, which is subscribed to EPICS Base.
Matching subscriptions: epics-core-list-subscription
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1182091

Title:
  Make TIME field directly accessible

Status in EPICS Base:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Users often request the ability to access the TIME field directly.
  It could be provided as an array of 2 32-bit values, possibly with a specific string in ISO-8601 form say.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/epics-base/+bug/1182091/+subscriptions