Re: More precise timing for record processing

[Ralph Lange via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Another option:

Look at the EVENT scanning mechanism.

You can set as many records as you want to process when specific (you choose the names) IOC-wide "soft" events are happening. Such events can be generated by calling a routine in EPICS Base.

If you create a thread, implementing your dream of a fancy delay mechanism, it can just generate that soft event - and all the records you configured to listen to that event will be processed.

The easiest and most flexible way to create such a facility would be writing a device support based on the asynPortDriver C++ class. In that case, start/stop, configuring the event name and period/frequency, statistics etc. can all happen transparently through device support, at run time. With such an implementation, adding an additional flexible scan period boils down to one more line in a substitutions file.

Cheers,

~Ralph