4.3. Writing the Configuration Script
Configuring the VM-USB for readout requires no compilation of code or writing of C++, rather it amounts to writing a simple configuration script, daqconfig.tcl, that is written in the TCL language. In general, one does not need to know how to write TCL to create their config file. Instead, knowing the names of the device driver commands and their arguments should be enough. [1] On the other hand, if you are TCL savvy, then go ahead and write standard TCL in the script, because it is evaluated with the standard TCL interpeter.
As was mentioned in the previous section, the VM-USB requires the definition of a "stack", i.e., a list of VME operations that should be executed given a specific trigger condition, and the configuration script is where this is done. You can imagine that every device in an experiment is read out using a well-defined set of VME operations so that if more than one device needs to be read out, the stack can be constructed by appending each successive device's readout operations to it. This is exactly what is done. In fact, VMUSBReadout provides support for readout of many commonly used devices out of the box. The user simply needs to declare which of devices he/she is using and then add them to a stack.
Each supported device class is represented in the configuration file by a Tcl command ensemble. The command ensemble provides subcommands that allow you to create, configure, and query the configuration of physical devices (device instances). The device configuration is represented in the configuration file in a manner analagous to the state of a Tk widget. That is, you never actually program the device directly, you simply specify the desired configuration. The actual programming is done by the device class's device support software. Device instances are created with a user-provided name that must be unique, because specific device instances are always identified by their name later in the script.
In accordance with the way the VM-USB operates, you can define up to 8
stacks in the configuration script. Just like the device classes, stacks
are represented as command ensembles that can create, configure, and query stack
instances. The user adds their specific device instances to a stack
by passing them as list to the -modules
configuration option. Furthermore, the trigger condition for the stack
is specified by the -trigger. It is important to
understand that unless a device instance is registered to a stack
instance, the VM-USB will ignore its presence.
The DAQ configuration file is processed at the beginning of each run and in a fresh interpreter each time. What this means practically is that state cannot be maintained across runs via your configuration file.
Example 4-1. Creating and configuring devices
Some things are best demonstrated than explained in prose. For that reason, we will conclude our discussion of the configuration file by walking through the set up of a basic daqconfig.tcl file. This script will focus on configuring a system to read out a single Caen V785 peak-sensing ADC in slot 15, with base address 0x11000000. We will also readout out a Struck SIS3820 scaler every two seconds.
The name of the command ensemble that does this is adc, so we add the following two lines to our daqconfig.tcl file.
adc create myadc 0x11000000adc config myadc -geo 15
The adc command implements base support for the CAEN 32 channel digitizer family (V775, V785, V792, V862).
- This line creates an instance of one of those modules with a base address 0x11000000. The instance is given the name myadc to uniquely identify it later in the script.
- The second line sets a configuration parameter, the geographical address of the module, for the instance created by the first line. The reference ssection 3vmusb provides detailed information about the configuration options supported by each device class.
Configuration files must also specify at least one stack and, if scaler modules are to be read periodically, a second scaler stack. See the stack(3vmusb) command in the reference material for detailed information about how to create and configure stacks.
To continue building on the daqconfig.tcl that was just created, we will add a stack that will read out myadc.
stack create events
stack config event -trigger nim1 -modules [list myadc]
Stacks are created and configured exactly like any other module. In
this configuration file fragment, a stack named
events is created. It is configured to manage the
myadc module (-modules). as well as
to be executed when a NIM signal arrives at the IN 1 input of the VM-USB
(-trigger nim1).
Finally, we add the SIS3820 scaler to the configuration script and create a second stack specifically for reading the scalers. Because this is logically equivalent to what we did to set up the Caen V785, we will be a bit more terse. Here are the lines that need to be added to the daqconfig.tcl for reading out the scaler every 2 seconds.
sis3820 create sisscaler 0x38000000
- Here we create the device instance for the SIS3820. We are using the device to read all 32-channels during each read operation which is accomplished without anything other than default settings.
-
Because we want to execute the stack every 2 seconds, we must
provide the scaler value to the
-triggeroption. Furthermore, we must also provide the number of seconds for the period of execution to the-periodoption.
The reference pages in 3vmusb describe, among other things the commands that implement device support that are supported by the NSCL programming group. In addtion to user device drivers that are described later in this chapter, two device drivers support modules have been contributed by Washington University at St. Louis. These modules support XLMs used to read out the ASIC systems they have developed for managing large detector arrays.
For information about how to use those modules, contact Lee Sobotka or Jon Elson at Washington University directly.
If the device support provided by VMUSBReadout is insufficient for your experiment, you can extend the supported modules by developing your own module. The details of extending device support can be found in Extending the Supported Readout Hardware.