RE: Save/Compare/Restore Application

[Emmanuel Mayssat <emayssat@outlook.com>]

MASAR is awesome !

I have a few questions/comments though.

Q: What is the purpose of the comment tab? (The tab the pyqt application default to)

Q: If files are backed up in sqlite db, how does that db scale with time?

What about saving in several sqlite files? (Let's say one per system? one file per year/month/day? one file per backup?)?

If I use only 1 sqlite file and let the system run for 5 years, am I going to have problems with performance or data management?

Q: Are the button labelled correctly?

[fetch events] ... fetches snapshots   ( <-- my operators (and I ) don't know what an event is ...)

[fetch snapshots]... display snapshot, i.e pv values of selected snapshot

[save to file] ... export snapshot to csv, but do not save a snapshot

Q: Is there a way to select the fields that are displayed in the viewer?

SCR applications trend to not be user-friendly. making the UI configurable would be awesome! 

Q: Some PVs should never be restored (ie input or special output record), is there a way configure a PV to never be restored?

Q: When doing the diff between the current configuration and the running machine, is there a way to allow for noise in the reading?

Example: A ai record reports a noisy voltage. I want the software to report that 1.1 Volt is the same as 1 Volt

Q: Can you start the MASAR server without a terminal?

Q: Is MASAR still actively developed? Is anyone else using it?

Regards,

--

Emmanuel

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Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:28:45 -0500
From: shengb@bnl.gov
To: emayssat@outlook.com
Subject: Re: Save/Compare/Restore Application
CC: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov

Hi Emmanuel,
MASAR is developed with all tech you mentioned: Python, PyQt, SQLite.
The server side uses SQLite as back-end data storage engine. All configurations and data are stored in SQLite.
The access to SQLite is thru a python interface, which I called it pymasar. With pymasar, although it is not the
desired way, but if you wish, you are able to play with the MASAR RDB directly.

The client side provides Python interface for scripting users. A GUI is also available, which is based on the client
Python interface and developed with PyQt.

The comparing is inside the Client side.
The restore function is added in the PyQt part, which needs cothread module.

Here is a list of modules dependency:
 - EPICS V3 (most likely, libCom)
 - EPICS V4 (pvData, pvAccess, pvIOC, and normativetype)
 - SQLite
 - Python 2.7.x
 - PyQt

According the requirement you mentioned in your previous, I believe we can do it in the client interface.
I am very interesting to work on that.

Guobao

On 1/30/13 1:00 PM, Emmanuel Mayssat wrote:

Guabao,

I found the mercurial repository (although for some reason I cannot access it, but that maybe on my side)

Is EPICS V4 required? 

I have an EPICS V3.14.11 installation....

--

E

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From: emayssat@outlook.com
To: shengb@bnl.gov; emmanuel_mayssat@lynceantech.com
Subject: RE: Save/Compare/Restore Application
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:51:49 -0800
CC: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov

Guabao,
SCORE is Java based and here we are using .... python (as well as Qt, pyqt, SQLlite, and Fedora 16)!

So our preference go to MASAR, but....

I looked at the documentation and noticed some interesting features.

Assuming I have a signal with white noise that is captured in a ai record,

if I compare its current and previously saved value, there are likely to be different.

Is there a way to say that for that PV, if the value is within 3 standard dev (configurable per PV) then do not report the PV as different?

Are the sources MASAR available?

Is this software packaged and ready to be distributed?

If so, where is a download page?

Regards,

--

Emmanuel

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From: shengb@bnl.gov
To: emayssat@outlook.com
Subject: Re: Save/Compare/Restore Application
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:27:00 +0000
CC: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov

Hi Emmanuel,

Here at NSLS II, we have developed a tool for this purpose, which I named it MASAR, and are using it for our beam commissioning.

It is capable to take a snapshot with any pv combination, for example with scalar pv and waveform pv.

An online user manual can be found at 

http://epics-pvdata.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/epics-pvdata/masarService/raw-file/tip/documentation/userManual.html

There are sections to explain how to compile everything from source, and run a demo.

I have all binary packages against Debian 7. If you want them, I can send to you.

Guobao

On Jan 29, 2013, at 8:00 PM, "Emmanuel Mayssat" <emayssat@outlook.com> wrote:

Hello, 

I am exploring save/compare/restore applications out there as I intend to replace ours.

To date, I am only aware of SCORE used at ORNL. 

Is anyone on this mailing list maintaining/developing/administrating SCORE?

Is anybody using something else? If so, what? Is there a project web page?

Regards,

--

Emmanuel