Epics V4 Questions - New to Epics 4

["Madden, Timothy J." <tmadden@aps.anl.gov>]

I am getting started with Epics V4.

I am playing with the examples in the Java version of 4.6.
Specifically I am using ExampleDatabase.java.

Say we wish to make PVs that are more than soft PVs. There seems to be more than one way to
make a PV do something. Example: We put a 1 to an int PV, and the server writes something to an instrument.

How do we do this? It seems like there are several ways:
1) Use a monitor client like seq does.
2) extend PVRecord and fill in the process() function. Not sure how to get all the data we need.
3) use this RPC business, extending a PVRecord.
4) What about adding a PVListener to PVRecord? I could not figure this out. The idea is that PVListener
would make the instrument do something, and we need not extend PVRecord.

What is the preferred design for making a PV do something in a server?


General question:
 I know RPC stanhs for remote procedure call, but what does it mean in epics V4?
What does it do that epics V3 does not do? Is this just a fancy name for record support?



Tim Madden
APS, Argonne