Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Dirk Zimoch <[email protected]> · Tue, 14 Aug 2018 11:52:52 +0200

Hi Abdalla,

SynApps is not supported by me. So if StreamDevice does not build with

the synApps build system, I cannot help.

I build it stand-alone and assume that base, asyn and the calc module

from synApps are already installed properly. I have tried this with

3.13.10, 3.14.8, 3.14.12, 3.15.5, 3.16.1, and 7.0.1.

Why it has problems with the standard EPICS base records like ai I don't

understand as you do have base.dbd before stream.dbd. Have a look what I

did in streamApp/Makefile.

Dirk

On 14.08.2018 09:57, Abdalla  Ahmad wrote:

Hello Dirk

I used PCRE_INCLUDE and StreamDevice build succeeded. I built it using synApps packages collection from the script "assembly_synApps.sh" and base 3.15.5, on my IOC I get this strange error regarding the DBD

Declaration of recordtype(scalcout) preceeded full definition.
Error at or befor "}" in file dbd/ioc.dbd line 12380
Ioc_registerRecordDeviceDriver pdbbase
registerRecordDeviceDriver failed aSub
registerRecordDeviceDriver failed ai
registerRecordDeviceDriver failed stringin
registerRecordDeviceDriver failed sub

And then I get the error "record is of unknown type ai". In my iocApp/src/Makefile I have

Ioc_DBD += base.dbd
Ioc_DBD += stream.dbd
Ioc_DBD += drvAsynSerialPort.dbd
Ioc_DBD += drvAsynIPPort.dbd

Ioc_LIBS += asyn
Ioc_LIBS += stream

And in StreamDevice/configure/RELEASE I have asy R4-33 and calc R3-7-1

Thank you very much
Abdalla.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dirk Zimoch [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2018 4:42 PM
To: Abdalla Ahmad <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Ralph Lange <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Parse a variable-length, multi-column waveform in stream device

On 13.08.2018 14:41, Abdalla  Ahmad wrote:

Dear Ralph
I edited configure/Release and ran make inside stream-master, I got:
Makefile: No such a file or directory
No rule to make target Makefile. Stop

Dear Dirk
I commented PCRE from the configure/RELEASE but I got undefined reference errors despite the location of PCRE libraries is defined in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/. "rpm -qa | grep pcre" gave me the same libraries except version 8.32 and for x86_64, no i686.

I have both, 32 and 64 bit libraries installed, because I build EPICS for both. You don't need both.

StreamDevice uses the host's native PRCE if either PCRE_INCLUDE (directory of pcre.h) or PCRE_LIB (location of libpcre.so) is defined in RELEASE (or both). The problem is that the locations differ between Linux distros. It uses the EPICS module PRCE if PCRE defined in RELEASE.
It does not use PRCE if neither is defined.

I don't know if anything is different in PCRE version 8.32. What exactly are your undefined reference errors?

To build PCRE as an EPICS module, I had downloaded the source code from https://www.pcre.org and added this Makefile:
http://epics.web.psi.ch/software/streamdevice/pcre/Makefile

Worked with PRRE version 7.2.

Thank you all.
Abdalla.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dirk Zimoch
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2018 2:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Parse a variable-length, multi-column waveform in stream
device

On 13.08.2018 13:12, Ralph Lange wrote:

If I remember correctly,
the epics-modules/stream does not require you to run configure in the
pcre directory.
Have you tried just building it?

Exactly. The EPICS Makefile replaces the ./configure stuff.

If you have PCRE already installed on your system, you should not need to build it. PCRE should be available for all Linux systems and for Windows as well. Install the development package (the once with the header files).

For example, I have this for my Linux system:
$ rpm -qa | grep pcre
pcre-devel-7.8-7.el6.i686
pcre-devel-7.8-7.el6.x86_64
pcre-7.8-7.el6.x86_64
pcre-7.8-7.el6.i686

Cheers,
~Ralph

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 at 12:17, Abdalla Ahmad
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

      Hello Dirk

      No the device does not echo any command.

      I downloaded the latest stream device from github but It needs PCRE,
      which I got from epics-modules/stream , I took the folder "pcre",
      did "./configure" and make and I get the error

      No rule to make target doc/html/NON-AUTOTOOL-Build.txt needed by all-am.

      Could there be an option to pass to the configure script do disable
      doc files? Or maybe I got PCRE module? There is a yum package
      installed called pcre so I added the libraries to ldconfig but still
      I get undefined reference errors.

      Best Regards,
      Abdalla.

      -----Original Message-----
      From: Dirk Zimoch [mailto:[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>]
      Sent: Monday, August 13, 2018 1:05 PM
      To: Abdalla Ahmad <[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>>; [email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>
      Subject: Re: Parse a variable-length, multi-column waveform in
      stream device

      On 13.08.2018 11:33, Abdalla  Ahmad wrote:
       > Hello Dirk
       >
       > That is really impressive, thank you very much. I will integrate
      your protocol in the IOC and provide you with feedback.
       > Regarding your assumptions:
       > 1. We used the LF terminator with setpoints and readings and it
      works fine so I suppose that is the correct terminator.
       > 2. Will this work with variable buffer length? I mean instead of
      "3" for example we pass the PV for buffer length.

      Yes. Just make sure that NELM is big enough for your longest
      possible reply.

       > 3. Since the rest are passive scan, If I understand correctly
      processing the first one will process the others right?

      The input from the first one will make the "I/O Intr" records process.
      However, any input from any other record will be given to the "I/O
      Intr"
      records. Thus if you have other data that matches the format, those
      records will be processed falsely.

      Does the device echo the command "TBT_IQ <n>"? If not, there is no
      way for the "I/O Intr" records to find out if they should parse
      input or not. Thus they will try to parse everything and if they
      succeed, they will process the record.

       >
       > Best Regards,
       > Abdalla.
       >
       > -----Original Message-----
       > From: Dirk Zimoch [mailto:[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>]
       > Sent: Monday, August 13, 2018 12:15 PM
       > To: Abdalla Ahmad <[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>>; [email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>
       > Subject: Re: Parse a variable-length, multi-column waveform in
      stream device
       >
       > Hello Ahmad,
       >
       > I have tested a solution using regexp to isolate the columns. But
      while doing that I found a bug in the regexp converter. Thus to make
      it work you need to use the latest commit from
      [email protected]:paulscherrerinstitute/StreamDevice.git
       >
       > What I do is the following:
       > 8 waveform records read the 8 columns. One is active, the other 7
      read the data with "I/O Intr".
       >
       > 8 protocols use regsub (%#/regexp/subst/) to remove the 7 values
      not needed for each waveform.
       >
       > Process waveform 1 and all 8 will get their column.
       >
       > I had to assume some details, e.g. line terminator "\n" and space
      after each value, including the last column. If that is wrong, the
      protocols need to me modified a bit.
       >
       > As I can't see any special marker for the last line, I do NOT use
      an InTerminator, because I need to read the whole table as one
      string. In case there is a marker, e.g. an empty line, you may set
      inTerminator accordingly ("\n\n") and remove the "\n" at the end of
      the 'in' commands.
       >
       > See attached files.
       >
       > Dirk
       >
       >
       > On 12.08.2018 08:22, Abdalla  Ahmad wrote:
       >> Hello Dirk
       >>
       >> Thank you for your reply, looking forward for your results. I
      would like to point out some notes:
       >> 1. Regarding variable size, you can expect for sure way larger
      buffer sizes than 1000.
       >> 2. Why the protocol parse you mentioned won't work? I may have
      understood you wrong but In a single line you can parse any number
      you want by skipping the others and I managed to do that by the same
      format you provided. The first "%i" will get the first number. But
      the problem is if I don't use "ExtraInput = Ignore" the IOC shell
      will be flooded with "x bytes surplus input" error.
       >> 3. Will you implement new parser in stream device to parse
      interlaced arrays? After many trials with stream device, it's either
      this or to develop a new EPICS driver for the device.
       >>
       >> Best Regards,
       >> Abdalla
       >>
       >> -----Original Message-----
       >> From: Dirk Zimoch [mailto:[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>]
       >> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 12:37 PM
       >> To: Abdalla Ahmad <[email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>>; [email protected]
      <mailto:[email protected]>
       >> Subject: Re: Parse a variable-length, multi-column waveform in
      stream
       >> device
       >>
       >> Hello Ahmad,
       >>
       >> StreamDevice can read variable length arrays. You need to set
      NELM to the maximum number of elements. StreamDevice will set NORD
      to the number of elements found. Modern EPICS versions are able to
      handle variable length arrays when the client sets up a monitor
      using 0 for the requested array length. It should then use the
      current NORD value.
       >>
       >> However StreamDevice reads arrays in rows, not columns. If you
      have a waveform record and use { separator=" "; in "%i"; }, stream
      device will repeat the "%i" up to NELM times (or until end of line,
      until the separator is not found any more or until the conversion
      fails).
       >>
       >> But in your case it seems you have interlaced arrays:
       >>
       >> a[0] b[0] c[0] d[0] e[0] f[0] g[0] h[0] a[1] b[1] c[1] d[1] e[1]
      f[1]
       >> g[1] h[1] a[2] b[2] c[2] d[2] e[2] f[2] g[2] h[2]
       >>
       >> So StreamDevice will see the first elements of each array, not
      all elements of one array.
       >> StreamDevice would be able to read rows with variable length:
       >>
       >> a[0] a[1] a[2] ...
       >> b[0] b[1] b[2] ...
       >> c[0] c[1] c[2] ...
       >> d[0] d[1] d[2] ...
       >> e[0] e[1] e[2] ...
       >> f[0] f[1] f[2] ...
       >> g[0] g[1] g[2] ...
       >> h[0] h[1] h[2] ...
       >>
       >> Also this will not help:
       >> in "%i %*i %*i %*i %*i %*i %*i %*i";
       >> Because the first %i reads all the elements in the row before
      even parsing the first %*i.
       >>
       >> I need a new syntax to specify interlaces arrays.
       >>
       >> The only way I can think to at the moment is to pre-process the
      input with a regsub which removed the "other" array elements from
      the input, but I need to test that first. It may be quite
      inefficient. Thus if <N> becomes huge (say >1000) parsing may be
      quite slow.
       >>
       >> I will tell you soon if I can find a solution...
       >>
       >> Dirk
       >>
       >>
       >> On 08.08.2018 11:09, Abdalla  Ahmad wrote:
       >>> Hi
       >>>
       >>> We are trying to implement an IOC for the Libera Spark BPM using
       >>> stream device, one of the tricky commands for example is TBT_IQ <N>
       >>> which returns a variable-length buffer of turn-by-turn data. An
      example:
       >>>
       >>> TBT_IQ 3
       >>>
       >>> 22 -36  19 -38  16 -31  -3  -31
       >>>
       >>> 39 -212 29 -212 26 -163 -37 -150
       >>>
       >>> 39 -175 36 -176 27 -133 -21 -129
       >>>
       >>> As you can see the output is an array of fixed columns (IQ
       >>> parameters) and variable rows (waveforms length). In a single line
       >>> you can easily parse and skip any value, but in this format we
      have two problems:
       >>>
       >>> 1.Is it possible to parse variable number of IN commands in the
       >>> protocol file?
       >>>
       >>> 2.Variable "IN" commands mean variable waveform length, is this
       >>> possible in EPICS?
       >>>
       >>> Best Regards,
       >>>
       >>> Abdalla Ahmad
       >>>
       >>> Control Engineer
       >>>
       >>> SESAME
       >>>
       >>> Allan, Jordan.
       >>>
       >>> Tel: (+962-5) 3511348 , ext. 265
       >>>
       >>> Fax: (+962-5) 3511423
       >>>
       >>> Mob: (+962-7)88183296
       >>>
       >>> www.sesame.org.jo <http://www.sesame.org.jo>
      <http://www.sesame.org.jo/>
       >>>

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System