FWIW, I found the APST and MPST fields in waveform, aai, aao, lsi and lso records as well (EPICS base 7.0.5).
Timo
From:
Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of "Hu, Yong via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Reply-To: "Hu, Yong" <yhu at bnl.gov>
Date: Wednesday 16 June 2021 at 18:01
To: "Johnson, Andrew N." <anj at anl.gov>, Adrian Martinez <adrian.martinez at sevensols.com>
Cc: EPICS tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: Get timestamp from another IOC
Wow, good to know the fields of APST and MPST which seem specific to stringin / stringout.
https://epics.anl.gov/base/R7-0/5-docs/stringinRecord.html
These two fields are also available in base-3.14.12 (which is still being used at NSLS-2). But they are not documented in the old wiki “This Wiki is no longer being maintained”:
https://wiki-ext.aps.anl.gov/epics/index.php/RRM_3-14_String_Input
From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Johnson, Andrew N. via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 11:39 AM
To: Adrian Martinez <adrian.martinez at sevensols.com>
Cc: EPICS tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: Re: Get timestamp from another IOC
Hi Adrian,
I've used 'dbr' command on
IOC1 and this is the out for Timestamp_from_IOC1:
ioc > dbpr MBT-RBN:TMG-EVR-01:Timestamp_from_IOC1 10
ACKS: NO_ALARM ACKT: YES APST: On Change ASG:
ASP: (nil) BKPT: 00 DESC: DISA: 0
DISP: 0 DISS: NO_ALARM DISV: 1 DPVT: 0x153cf30
DSET: 0x7f5fc4122160 DTYP: Obj Prop string
EVNT: FLNK:DB_LINK MBT-RBN:TMG-EVR-01:TimeErr-I
INP:INST_IO @OBJ=EVR-MTCA, PROP=NextSecond LCNT: 0
LSET: 0x1410530
MLIS: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
MLOK: f0 85 50 01 00 00 00 00 MPST: On Change
NAME: MBT-RBN:TMG-EVR-01:Timestamp_from_IOC1 NSEV: NO_ALARM NSTA: NO_ALARM
OVAL: Sun, 07 Feb 2106 06:28:16 PACT: 0 PHAS: 0
PINI: NO PPN: (nil) PPNR: (nil) PRIO: LOW
PROC: 0 PUTF: 0 RDES: 0x1242bc0 RPRO: 0
RSET: 0x7f5fc3ca6560 SCAN: 1 second SDIS:CONSTANT
SEVR: NO_ALARM SIML:CONSTANT SIMM: NO SIMS: NO_ALARM
SIOL:CONSTANT SPVT: 0x1558ce0 STAT: NO_ALARM SVAL:
TIME: 2021-06-16 14:47:16.997443401 TPRO: 0 TSE: 0
TSEL:CONSTANT UDF: 1 UDFS: INVALID
VAL: Sun, 07 Feb 2106 06:28:16
The SCAN field is 1s, VAL field never changes but the TIME field of the PV does.
That explains why your source record isn’t getting a new timestamp then; the TSEL link actually sets up a CA monitor on the VAL field, so if that monitor never updates it will never get a new timestamp value.
If you set the MPST field of the above record to “Always” it will cause every process to generate a monitor update, which will update your other records.
Complexity comes for free, simplicity you have to work for.