Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

On Aug 23, 2021, at 10:24 AM, Leblanc, Gregory via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

I’m having some trouble getting this substitution magic to work in my .db files.  I think that when I run ‘make’ I should get some .db files, which should have all of the $(XxX) stuff replaced, based on the contents of the .substitutions file, as long as the filenames match.  However, I’m getting some things replaced, and others not.  For example, I have the following in Watlow_PM_General.template:

 

{

        field(INPA,     "$(s):$(ta):$(ss):$(mod):ControlMode$(ch) CP")

 

And this in Watlow_PM_General.substitutions:

 

file Watlow_PM_General.template

{

pattern {  s, ta,      ss, mod, ch}

        {   , SE,  Watlow,   1,  1}

}

 

But when I compile, I get things like this in Watlow_PM_General.db:

 

{

        field(INPA,     "SE:Watlow:1:1:ControlMode$(ch) CP")

 

I haven’t been able to figure out why the ch macro is the only one not getting replaced.  Full source is at: https://github.com/gregoryleblanc/CsHeater

Well the obvious explanation is that the empty value intended for your $(s) macro in the substitutions file is being ignored — you have actually found a bug in our msi tool.

If it were setting $(s) to an empty string the PV name should begin with a colon character ‘:’ in the expanded version but it doesn’t — is that what you want to happen? For a workaround if you want $(s) to be empty you can do that by using an empty pair of double-quotes instead, I have just tried that and it works.

HTH,

- Andrew