On 7/25/23 07:29, Cobb, Tom (DLSLtd,RAL,LSCI) via Tech-talk wrote:
Hi all,
I'm resurrecting this thread to ask some more questions about autosave.
At the moment we manage autosave with tags in templates, which leads to the issues that Mark describes. I considered switching to req files and overriding them on a per-template basis, but I also have a requirement to restore the soft limits on some motors and not on others. I'm now wondering if managing a single req file per IOC that starts blank, and is gradually filled as PVs move from "database is source of truth" to "user settings stick" as per Matt's approach.
I wonder if something could be done with dbIsDefaultValue() ?
This function is used by eg. dbWriteRecordFP() to only print
out "field(...)" entries with a non-default value.
Does anyone have any tips in managing this per-IOC req file?
Ideally, I would like to make a smooth process where a user identifies a PV that needs to be autosaved, and then it gets added to the req file and autosave refreshed so it starts saving that PV without restarting the IOC. Has anyone done this?
Thanks,
Tom
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*From:* Pearson, Matthew R. <pearsonmr at ornl.gov>
*Sent:* 17 October 2019 16:48
*To:* Cobb, Tom (DLSLtd,RAL,LSCI) <tom.cobb at diamond.ac.uk>; 'Jeong Han Lee' <citadel.lee at gmail.com>; Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu>
*Cc:* tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
*Subject:* RE: few questions on autosave
Hi,
We take a couple of different approaches for areaDetector based IOCs:
On some IOCs I don’t autogenerate the req files using the info fields, and I use a manually created list instead for the few PVs that the users expect to be autosaved (eg. a camera gain, or the position of a ROI on a user screen, or an exposure time). To ensure the rest of the system is restored to a working state on a reboot I either do a few dbpfs in the startup script, or do the same via some database logic. Sometimes the database logic would be switching between multiple system configurations, and it just resets the last configuration that the user selected.
On others I do autogenerate the req files using the info fields, and then I rely on autosave to configure the system on a reboot. That’s for systems that are fairly complex and configured in different ways on different beamlines and it would be too much of a burden to manually maintain a list of req files for each beamline. For these systems I do have a way to verify configuration using a script (checking the current configuration against previous known good states).
Cheers,
Matt
*From:* Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> *On Behalf Of *Cobb, Tom (DLSLtd,RAL,LSCI) via Tech-talk
*Sent:* Thursday, October 17, 2019 4:31 AM
*To:* 'Jeong Han Lee' <citadel.lee at gmail.com>; Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu>
*Cc:* tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
*Subject:* [EXTERNAL] Re: few questions on autosave
Hi all,
For reference, these autosave tags in the database were added by SLAC in aravisGigE here:
https://github.com/areaDetector/aravisGigE/commit/0eac2d00d4f46c6d5a083928c0a1325ad33f341a <https://github.com/areaDetector/aravisGigE/commit/0eac2d00d4f46c6d5a083928c0a1325ad33f341a>
I'm not sure why they chose to autosave so many fields.
At Diamond we typically do not use autosave at all for GigE cameras. This is because our users expect restarting an IOC to take the system back to a known good state, so we use the database PINI'd values or dbpf calls to make sure this happens. Any changes from these "known good" settings are captured in the configure phase of scans.
I would be happy to see a much reduced list of "default" autosaved fields, in line with what the other areaDetector drivers do.
Thanks,
Tom
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*From:*Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov <mailto:tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov>> on behalf of Mark Rivers via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <mailto:tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>>
*Sent:* 15 October 2019 19:06
*To:* 'Jeong Han Lee' <citadel.lee at gmail.com <mailto:citadel.lee at gmail.com>>
*Cc:* tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <mailto:tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>>
*Subject:* RE: few questions on autosave
Hi Han,
> I would like to raise few simple questions related with autosave.
> These questions are related with predefined req files and the info tag in db or template files.
> Since `autosaveBuild` is supported from base 3.15.0.2, or a patch to EPICS base 3.14, are there any specific reasons why areaDetector keeps using only req files instead of info tags in template files?
I think you are confusing two different features of autosave: autosaveBuild and makeAutosaveFiles.
autosaveBuild does not parse db or template files for info tags to define fields to be autosaved. What autosaveBuild does is it to automatically search for a corresponding .req file for each db or template file that is loaded. If it finds a corresponding .req file it adds that .req file to built_settings.req. Thus the purpose of this utility is to save the developer from having to manually create a complete auto_settings.sav file for each IOC, based on the databases it loads. autosaveBuild does require base 3.15.0.2 or a patch to EPICS base 3.14.
makeAutosaveFiles is the command that reads the entire databases loaded into the IOC and searches for info nodes named autosaveFields or autosaveFields_pass0. It constructs a list of PV names to be saved and writes them to the info_settings.req and info_positions.req files. I think this is the command you are actually talking about. Note that it is supported in 3.14 and does not require any patches.
My personal feeling is that using info nodes to autogenerate .req files may not be the best approach. The reason is that the choice of what records and fields to add to autosave can be a site-specific decision. For example, should the .PREC field of every record be in autosave or not? Some sites may want this, but some may not because they want those fields to revert to a "known state" when the IOC restarts, even if some user changed the PREC field for a specific experiment. I feel that customizing the .req file is much simpler and less error prone than customizing the .template file. For example in ADProsilica prosilica.template is 960 lines long (and currently does not contain any info nodes), while prosilica_settings.req is only 23 lines long. Sites can easily create a new version of prosilica_settings.req and put it in a location earlier in the autosave requestfile_path to use the new version. This is much easier to maintain than editing the prosilca.template file
itself to change the info nodes.
> In addition, ADSpinnaker module, it uses req files and info tag together. Do you have any specific reasons why both configurations are in that one module?
Actually spinnaker.template in the current version of ADSpinnaker does not contain any info nodes.
What does contain info nodes are the .template files in ADGenICam that are auto-generated using the camera XML file and a Python script. Those are there because that Python script was derived from the one in aravisGigE that put them in and I have not removed them. However, I really question how useful they are. Consider the file PGR_BlackflyS_50S5C.template for a FLIR/Point Grey camera. It contains 619 lines like this:
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE PINI VAL")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE PINI VAL")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE PINI VAL")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE PINI VAL")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC ZRSV ONSV TWSV THSV FRSV FVSV SXSV SVSV EISV NISV TESV ELSV TVSV TTSV FTSV FFSV TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC ZRSV ONSV TWSV THSV FRSV FVSV SXSV SVSV EISV NISV TESV ELSV TVSV TTSV FTSV FFSV TSE PINI VAL")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
info(autosaveFields, "DESC LOLO LOW HIGH HIHI LLSV LSV HSV HHSV EGU TSE")
Altogether it defines over 8000 PVs to be autosaved, including such very important PVs as PINI, DESC, etc. Do you really want a user to be able to modify those fields and have those changes survive an IOC restart?
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov <mailto:tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov>> On Behalf Of Jeong Han Lee via Tech-talk
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2019 5:49 AM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <mailto:tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: few questions on autosave
Hi All, and especially areaDetector Developers,
I would like to raise few simple questions related with autosave.
These questions are related with predefined req files and the info tag in db or template files.
Since `autosaveBuild` is supported from base 3.15.0.2, or a patch to EPICS base 3.14, are there any specific reasons why areaDetector keeps using only req files instead of info tags in template files?
In addition, ADSpinnaker module, it uses req files and info tag together. Do you have any specific reasons why both configurations are in that one module?
Best,
Han
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