Categories of SpecTcl commands

	SpecTcl commands

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This page contains both a Functional index of commands and an Alphabetical Index.

Functional Index of Commands

Display Control

Event Source Selection

Run Control

Parameter Manipulation

Spectrum Manipulations

Gates

Saving and restoring state

Formatted Display of state

Filters

TreeParameter and TreeVariable

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While the number and sizes of the spectra supported by SpecTcl is limited only by virtual memory available, the Xamine display program has a limited number of spectrum slots and a limited amount of spectrum storage. The number of slots is fixed by Xamine, however the amount of storage is set dynamically when SpecTcl initializes. The commands in the table below allow the user to control which set of spectra are loaded into the displayer's shared memory at any given time. Binding and unbinding spectra does not affect spectrum contents. They are copied into display storage from SpecTcl private channels and back as needed.

Command	Purpose
sbind	Attach a spectrum to a display slot
unbind	Detach a spectrum from a display slot

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Event Source Selection

SpecTcl can accept event data from several types of event sources. Source and source types can be switched dynamically throughout the run without exiting the program. Thus you can start out analyzing online data and then switch to analyzing data from disk, or tape and back. Tape event sources are assumed to be ANSI labelled tapes with possibly several run files per tape.

Command	Purpose
attach	Attach an event source to SpecTcl detaching any current event source
tape	Select specific files from tape

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Run Control

While SpecTcl can analyze data and simultaneously respond to user input, some operations, such as switching event sources, require that data analysis be switched off. This section describes commands for manipulating the way SpecTcl analyzes data.

Command	Purpose
start	Start Event analysis
stop	Stop Event analysis

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Parameter Manipulation

SpecTcl parameters have three properties:

A name by which you refer to the parameter when constructing spectra. A parameter name can be any number of characters, Tcl/TK quoting rules may be needed if spaces and special characters are included, however.
An id which represents the offset number in the Event array at which the parameter will be stored by the unpacker. Id's run from zero, there is no requirement for id's to be tightly packed, however.
A resolution, which represents the number of bits of data present in each parameter.

This section describes commands which manipulate parameters.

Command	Purpose
parameter	Creates, deletes, lists parameters.
pseudo	Creates a Pseudo Parameter.
ParList	A Tcl script which creates a nicely formatted parameter list.
SaveParams	A Tcl script which saves parameter definitions to a Tcl/TK script file from which they can be restored.

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Spectrum Manipulations

Parameters can be histogrammed into spectra. The spectra can be bound to the displayer to be Xamined. This section describes commands which define, delete, list and in other ways manipulate spectra.

Command	Purpose
channel	Access channels of a spectrum.
clear	Zeros the contents of a set of spectra.
project	Create a spectrum that is a projection of an existing 2-d spectrum
spectrum	Creates, lists or deletes spectra.

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Gate Manipulations

Gates can be created and applied to spectrum to control when they are incremented. In general, a spectrum is incremented only if the following conditions are true:

All parameters needed for the spectrum exist in the event.
All parameters needed for the spectrum are within the spectrum range.
Any gate applied to the spectrum evaluates to True for the event.
Note: If a parameter needed for a gate is not present, then the gate evaluates false.

Command	Purpose
apply	Applies a gate to a spectrum.
gate	Creates, lists or deletes a gate.
ungate	Ungates a spectrum.
fold	Folds gamma spectra.

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Saving and Restoring State

These commands are actually implemented by Tcl scripts which are stored in $SpecTclHome/Script. The Read scripts support some action tailoring see here for more information. Commands to save and restore the analysis state are:

Command	Purpose
clean	Deletes all parameter and spectra
loadall	Loads a saved state file created with saveall. Saved state files are Tcl scripts. Loadall executes lines in the script file while handling known errors which can occur in definitions.
saveall	Saves the state of the SpecTcl analysis to a file which can be read in using loadall
sread	Read a spectrum from file
swrite	Write a set of spectra to file

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Filters

The filter command allows you to create and manipulate event filters.

TreeParameter and TreeVariable

The Tree Parameter package provides three facilities:

The capability of layering a structure on top of the normally flat SpecTcl parameter space
The capability of building a structure of real-like data and binding it to a similarly structured set of Tcl variables. Usually these variables are used to steer computation that is performed by your event processors.
A graphical user interface (GUI), for manipulating spectrum, parameter and gate definitions.

In order to support the GUI supplied by Treeparameter, and to allow you to create your own GUI software, the Treeparameter package creates two SpecTcl commands:

Command	Purpose
treeparameter	Manipulates and queries the properties of tree parameters.
treevariable	Manipulates and queries the properties of tree variables.

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Formatted State Displays

Most of SpecTcl's native commands for listing internal state produce output which can be easily processed by other SpecTcl scripts. While this simplifies the act of extending SpecTcl, it does make it a bit hard to interpret the data produced by these commands. Standard scripts are supplied with SpecTcl to produce more user friendly output:

Command	Purpose
ApList	Creates s nicely formatted list of which spectra have gates applied and what those gates are.
GateList	Displays a nicely formatted list of the gates
More	Paginate output.
ParList	A Tcl script which creates a nicely formatted parameter list.
SpecList	Lists spectra in human readable format

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Alphabetical Index of Commands

Command	Purpose
apply	Applies a gate to a spectrum
ApList	Creates s nicely formatted list of which spectra have gates applied and what those gates are.
attach	Attach an event source to SpecTcl detaching any current event source
channel	Access channels of a spectrum.
clean	Deletes all parameter and spectra
clear	Zeros the contents of a set of spectra.
filter	Creates and manipulates event filters.
fold	Applies, removes and lists folds on gamma spectra
gate	Create list or delete gates
GateList	Displays a nicely formatted list of the gates
loadall	Loads a saved state file created with saveall. Saved state files are Tcl scripts. Loadall executes lines in the script file while handling known errors which can occur in definitions.
More	Paginate output
parameter	Creates, deletes, lists parameters.
ParList	A Tcl script which creates a nicely formatted parameter list.
project	Create a spectrum that is a projection of an existing 2-d spectrum
pseudo	Manipulates pseudo parameters.
saveall	Saves the state of the SpecTcl analysis to a file which can be read in using loadall
spectrum	Creates, lists or deletes spectra
SpecList	Lists spectra in human readable format
sbind	Attach a spectrum to a display slot
sread	Read a spectrum from file
start	Start Event analysis
stop	Stop Event analysis
swrite	Write a spectrum to file
tape	Select specific files from tape
treeparameter	Manipulate and query tree parameters.
treevariable	Manipulate and query tree variables
unbind	Detach a spectrum from a display slot
ungate	Removes a gate condition from a histogram

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