EPICS Release baseR3.13.0.beta11

July 17, 1997

All major functionality that will be in R3.13 is now in place. It has been build on solaris, sunos, HPUX, alpha, SG, and winXX. There are still some c++ related problems. In particular c++ code does not build properly on SGI. Thus we are not yet ready for the first official 3.13 release. Since none of the c++ code is necessary for IOC applications this should not stop anyone from upgrading to 3.13.

The Application Developer's Guide is a major revision of the 3.12 edition. All Application Developer's should get a hard copy (from the postscript version) and read it. It describes the features in the latest release. The latest version is for beta11 base release.

LANL has a revision of the Record Reference Manual available. See the LANL EPICS documentation.

The document "EPICS IOC Applications: Building and Source/Release Control" provides guidlines for developing applications with 3.13.

Changes between beta4 and beta11

Support for win95 and winNT

Epics base now builds on windows platforms

GDD and Portable Channel Access Server

The gdd library and the portable channel access server now build on all platforms, except SGI and cygwin32, listed above. This also means that C++ is supported on these platforms.

Application Developer's Guide

The chapter "Building IOC Applications" is gone. It is replaced by the document "EPICS IOC Applications, Building and Source/Release Control". Other changes are minor. Following is a brief list:

• Database Definition: General Rules describes escape sequences
• Record Support: All record support methods that accept DBADDDR * now use the routine dbGetFieldIndex instead of comparing addresses. IOn addition the get_enum_str routines now use paddr->pfield as the field address instead of the field in the record.
• Runtime Database Access: Gives brief description of DBR_PUT_ACKT and DBR_PUT_ACKS. Also describes new routine dbGetPdbaddrFromLink
• The chapter "IOC Initialization" describes how to configure the error message logger.

NOTE: The initHooks described in the appDevGuide is not in beta11. In beta11 initHooks is the same as previous releases. The new version will be in the next release.

Compiler warning messages:

All of base except drv/old is now being built with

VX_WARN_YES = -Wall -pedantic -ansi

Most warning messages have now been eliminated. The remaining messages should not be removed without looking hard at code.

recSubArray

get_control_double routine returned incorrect values for fields INDX and NELM.

devAiStats

This is now renamed devVXStats. The new device definitions are:

device(ai,VME_IO,devAiVXStats,"VX stats")
device(ao,VME_IO,devAoVXStats,"VX stats")

Thus if an application has an old base.dbd and baseLIBOBJS including definitions for this device support they must be modified.

SysMon device support

This is removed from base. It is for APS designed and build VME create system monitoring. The support code is available from APS if needed. NOTE: In some beta releases baseLIBOBJS, had an include for devSysmon.o. Applications using an old version of baseLIBOBJS will not build until this statement is deleted.

dbToRecordtypeH

The enums for menus had a comma after last item.

pulseTrainRecord

recGblInitConstantLink for sgl was referencing wrong field.

gphLib

This did not properly support multiple clients in multi-thread environment.

dbPvdLib

Modified to be faster.

devMz8311

Use maxCards from module_types.h instead of a #define

calcRecord

Allow CALC to be 40 characters. Increase rpbuf from 184 to 200

mbbiDirectRecord

Add call to refresh_bits.

mbbxDirectRecord

Bx becomes no prompt for mbbi and prompt for mbbo. It was the reverse before.

calcoutRecord

A new record type that replaces old wait record. It is like a calc record with an output and a delay. It makes the wait record obsolete.

dbAccess

dbGetPdbAddrFromLink is a new routine. It returns NULL for all except LINK_DB links, for which it returns the address of the associated DB_ADDR structure.

escape characters in database files

dbLoadDatabase, dbLoadRecords, and dbLoadTemplate all allow the standard C escape sequences in quoted strings. For example a string can contain: "\x00 \27 \t" Thus these sequences pass though the lexical analyzer .

dbTranslateEscape

A new routine in libCom. It is used to translate escape sequences. It is defined in file epicsString.h. It typical place to use this is on parm fields that contain escape sequences like "\x00 \27 \t".

Slow booting

iocs with big databases were taking a long time to boot. It was discovered that allocating and then freeing small amounts of memeory frequently resulted in a VERY long memory free list. This is now fixed.

boRecord, mbboRecord

init_record now initialized the RVAL field.

ProcessCallback

Benjamin Franksen at BESSY reported a serious bug in the routine ProcessCallback (not used in base). It has been fixed.

CALC fields

postfix and calcPerform (used by calcRecord) have been changed so that a 0 byte now ends the postfix expression. Also if postfix detects an illegal expression it generates a 0 length postfix string. When calcPerform is given a 0 length string it returns a error status. Thus calcRecord no longer causes the IOC to crash if an illegal CALC fields is loaded.

Etc.

Many other minor problems, bugs, etc. were fixed.

Notes for Release 3.13 of EPICS Base

In porting EPICS to multiple architectures, the previous method of using utilities to convert the database definition files to a binary file (default.dctsdr) caused problems. The problem is that the binary file is created on one architecture and used on another. This has worked so far for sun4 and hp hosts combined with motorola 68xxx processors. As support for more host and more ioc architectures is developed problems are appearing. This paper describes changes that solve the problems.

Because the changes result in extensive changes to database access, other changes are also made. The file syntax is changed. The internal database structures are simplified and also changed to make it easier to support runtime add/delete of record types and record instances.

Goals

• Allow database definition without an EPICS generated binary file.
• Change internal database structures so that runtime add/delete of record types and record instances is possible.
• Allow each ioc to load and initialize only the record, device, and driver support it actually uses.

Backward Compatibility

• Minimal changes to existing record/device/driver support. A section below describes necessary changes.
• Provide tools to generate new database files from existing default.dctsdr
• No or almost no incompatible changes to the dbStatic API. New capabilities are of course allowed.

Incompatibilities

• DCT is no longer supported. A TCL/TK replacement is now available.
• The sdr file format (.database files) is no longer supported.
• The old DCT short form format is no longer supported.
• The only way to load record instance definitions into an ioc is the record instance format, which is exactly the same as the GDCT .db format.
• Any user written code that accesses internal database structures, i.e. any code that uses anything described in Chapter 11 (Database Structures) of the old Application Developers Guide will have to be changed.

Overview of new database support

EPICS defines a set of database file formats. In addition any of these files can contain include statements. For each ioc, the application developer will create a set of files specifying the record types, devices, and drivers needed for that ioc. Normally a master file will be created which consists of include statements that bring in record, device, and driver definitions. Default configurations can be provided for new users or for particular applications.

Database configuration and utility tools access the database via the static database access library. This library reads the files. It provides routines for reading the information in the database and for creating and modifying record instances. Database definition files can be read incrementally.

Other database configuration tools (capfast, relational database systems, object oriented databases, etc.) can also be used as long as they generate record instances in the format described below. In this case, however, it is still necessary to generate the other files because they are needed by database access and for record and device support modules.

Tools are provided that generate C code from the database files. Header files are generated for menu and record type definitions. These header files are used by record and device support. In addition the record type definitions contain code which computes field offsets and sizes and record sizes. This code is compiled by the same cross compiler that is used to compile other ioc code. Thus cross platform compatibility is achieved.

In order to initialize an ioc, all files needed by that ioc have to be loaded. It is also necessary to load the record/device/driver support modules.

Everything is designed so that the following are possible:

• It is easy to tailor record/device/driver support individually for each ioc.
• It is possible to incrementally add definitions. For example database configuration tools do NOT have to load all definitions at startup. New definitions can be read at any time. The underlying structures are designed so that it is possible to add new definitions after an ioc is initialized. Note however that additional changes will be needed after this project is complete before on-line add and delete are possible.
• It is possible to completely unbundle record support, device support, and driver support. Again work will remain before this is a reality.

An additional feature is that, for database configuration tools, record instance numeric fields and menu fields are stored as character strings. This solves the following problems.

• Rounding problems caused by converting from string to float and then back to string disappear.
• For integer fields the user can use the standard c conventions of preceding the value with 0x for hex or 0 for octal. Since the string itself is stored, the value will always appear with the prefix.
• Macro definitions are allowed.

Another feature is is that it is now possible to distinguish link constants with a value of 0 from links that have never been given a value.

Other changes have been made while the opportunity was available.

• The config files have been changed considerably. Base now has it's own config directory. Extensions (not implemented) can use the config from the version of base against which it is built as well as supply additional config files.
• Field names are no longer limited to four characters. It is NOT a good idea to use this feature until it has been checked against existing channel access clients. If fact it has not been tested at all.
• The record support modules have been renamed from recXxx.c to xxxRecord.c. This the name of the database file, include file, and source file are the same. Only the extensions are different.
• All files in base/include have been moved to an appropriate base/src directory. These files are now installed into base/include.

Database Definition File format

Formats are defined for the following:

• Menu choices.
• Record type description
• Device choice
• Driver choice
• Breakpoint Conversion Table
• Record Instance.

See the Application Developer's Guide for details.

The menu choices replace the existing global, record, and conversion choices. The global and record choices are very similar and thus are easy to combine. The method of handling the old conversion choices is described below. That section also describes the breakpoint tables.

The record type description format has been completely changed. It now has a "real" syntax. It should be MUCH easier to generate new definitions.

The device choice and driver support definitions are defined so that it is easy to provide incremental definitions.

The record instance format is an extension of the 3.12.beta13 and later GDCT .db format.

Path and include statements are supported. This provides a powerful tool for combining definitions from many sources. The path is a unix style path, i.e. a colon separated list of directory names.

default.dctsdr conversion tools

NOTES

• In the following default.dctsdr is optional. If not given the tool just looks for the file "default.dctsdr" in the current directory.
• All output files are placed in the directory from which the tool is executed.

The following tools are provided:

• sdr2gblmenu [default.dctsdr]
  All global menus are written as separate files.
• sdr2recordtype record_type record_type.h [default.dctsdr]
  A record type definition file is generated.
• sdr2device [default.dctsdr]
  All device definitions are placed in a file called device.dbd
• sdr2driver [default.dctsdr]
  All driver definitions are placed in a file called driver.dbd

For all utilities the required database definition files are generated from a dctsdr file from a previous epics release. A dctsdr file can be specified or else the utilities can be run in a directory which contains default.dctsdr (or a soft link with that name). sdr2recordtype also requires the header file generated by a previous epics release.

Conversions - replacement for DBF_CVTCHOICE

Let's briefly review database conversion, i.e. the LINR field for ai and ao records.

The allowed conversions are:

1. None
2. Linear
3. Breakpoint Tables

The main complication results from the breakpoint tables. Previously EPICS handled breakpoint tables as follows:

The user prepares files in one of two formats: The first is just a list of "raw value, eng units value". The second format is a file with a header line followed by a table of raw data values that represent data at equally spaced engineering unit values. In either case the ascii data is converted to an internal binary format containing breakpoint tables. This data is part of default.dctsdr.

Here is how breakpoint table are now handled.

• A new file format is defined for breakpoint tables.
• A conversion tool, makeBpt, takes as input the second format described above and creates the breakpoint table in the new file format.
• Previously EPICS automatically provided breakpoint tables for TypeJdegC, TypeJdegF, TypeKdegC, and TypeKdegF thermocouples. These breakpoint tables are part of the new epics base. However there are only loaded into an ioc if the user includes their definitions.
• A regular menu definition file menuConvert contains the same definitions as choices as that provided by the 3.12.2 version of epics. The menu includes definitions for the epics supplied breakpoint tables.
• The ai and ao records call a routine cvtRawToEngBpt to perform breakpoint conversions. This routine has been rewritten to to look for breakpoint tables obtained from the new breakpoint file format.

One other comment needs to be made about conversions. The Allen Bradley device support for the IXE module uses the LINR field in a non standard way. This was a mistake but compatibility must be maintained. Thus menuConvert contains a lot of choices used only by the IXE device support.

Converting existing applications

Database Configuration Tools

• The filter that converts record instance definitions must generate the new record instance file format rather than the old short form report. Contact Roselle Wright at LANL for details.
• A tool should be developed that, using static database access, automatically generates the record type description files used by capfast. My guess is that this should be easy to do.

Application Source/Release Control

At the present time There are at least three Application Source/Release Control Systems in active use. The old technique of having cat_ascii and replace_ascii directories no longer work. In addition makesdr no longer exists. The new system offers developers far more flexibility but it also means that each Application Source/Release Control system has to be modified to take advantage of the new capabilities. Again the changes in RULES and makeBaseApp should make this task easier.

The document "EPICS IOC Applications: Building and Source/Release Control" describes a utility makeBaseApp which can be used for small applications. It also provides guidlines that can be used for large applications.

Locally developed Record/Device support

• The dctsdr file and any header files for locally developed record types must be saved before performing a getrel to a new version of base.
• Any global menus, not supplied with epics, have to be converted via the sdr2gblmenu tool. The generated file must be edited to extract the locally developed menus.
• Any locally developed record type definitions have to be converted to the new ascii file format via the sdr2recordtype tool. Note that the generated file also contains definitions for any record specific menus.
• New definitions for locally developed device support must be generated via the sdr2device tool. The generated file must be edited so that only locally developed device support remains.
• New definitions for locally developed driver support must be generated via the sdr2driver tool. The generated file must be edited so that only locally developed drive support remains.
• If breakpoint tables have been locally developed. The following should be done.
• The menuConvert file should be copied from epics and new entries for the local breakpoint tables added to the end.
• If raw breakpoint tables were previously used, convert them to the new breakpoint format (easy to do). If equally spaced data files were used the makeBpt tool can be used to create new breakpoint tables.
• The following changes must be made to the record support modules:
• The include statement for the record type h file must be surrounded by the statements:

#define GEN_SIZE_OFFSET

#undef  GEN_SIZE_OFFSET

• Any statements that initialize a field from constant links must be changed. Such statements always contain the characters "value.value". For example:

    pai->simm = pai->siml.value.value;

is changed to

   recGblInitConstantLink(&pai->siml,DBF_USHORT,&pai->simm);

NOTE: This change also has to be made to any device support that manipulates constant links. Normally this is only soft device support.

Because it is now possible to distinguish between null links (links that were never given a value) and CONSTANT links with the value 0, the code now handles initialization of constant links in a uniform manner. Several record types in previous versions had special code to handle the case of the value 0 for constant links. These have been changed.

• If record support uses menus it should be modified to use the enum definitions in the generated header files.
• dbStaticLib - Some routines have a new name:

OLD ROUTINE             REPLACEMENT
 
dbFindRecdes            dbFindRecordType
dbFirstRecdes           dbFirstRecordType
dbNextRecdes            dbNextRecordType
dbGetRecdesName         dbGetRecordTypeName
dbGetNRecdes            dbGetNRecordTypes
dbFirstFielddes         dbFirstField
dbNextFielddes          dbNextField
dbGetChoices            dbGetMenuChoices

For now the old version will be supported. After one release they will go away.

• New vxWorks CONFIG rules are available to generate menu and record type include files from ascii files. The rules are:

    MENUS    += menuXXX.h
    RECTYPES += xxxRecord.h

• Changes to recGbl and database access link routines.
• recGblInitFastInLink
  recGblInitFastOutLink
  
  All code calling these should be removed. They are no longer needed.
• recGblGetFastLink
  recGblPutFastLink
  dbFastLinkGet
  dbFastLinkPut
  recGblGetLinkValue
  recGblPutLinkValue
  
  These are replaced by
  dbGetLink dbPutLink

long dbGetLink(struct db_link *,short dbrType,
        void *pbuffer,long *options,long *nRequest);

The last two arguments can be 0. options=0 means no options. nRequest=0 means scalar, i.e. retrieve one value.

long dbPutLink(struct db_link *,short dbrType,
        void *pbuffer,long nRequest);

• dbCaAddInLink
  dbCaAddOutlink
  dbCaGetLink
  dbCaPutLink
  
  The Add routines are no longer needed. The Get/Put routines are replaced by dbGetLink/dbPutLink.
• link.h
  All parm fields are now declared char * parm rather than char parm[] In addition the defines INSTIO_FLD_SZ to VXI_PARAM_SZ no longer exist. This is done so that unused links now use less storage.

Record Instance Definitions

Convert to proper format

All record instances must be capable of being loaded into an ioc via dbLoadDatabase, dbLoadRecords, or dbLoadTemplate. This is the same format that dbLoadRecords and dbLoadTemplate used in 3.12 releases. Note that if any files contain the statements:

        database(x) { nowhere() {
        }
        }

or

        database(x) {
        }

These statements must be removed. They were in pre 3.12 releases.

CONSTANT Links with value "0"

Release 3.13 is now capably of distingushing between a null link (a link that is not given any value at all) and a constant link with the value 0. This cause problems for some old record instance files. For example if a record instance is defined as:

        record(fanout,name) {
                field(SELN,"1")
                field(SELL,"0")
        }

Such definitions can be fixed by either completly removing the link definition or changing the value from "0" to "".

here is a complete list of record types and fields that may have this problem:

• fanoutRecord
• SELL -> SELN Note SELN is not a prompt field.

pulseCounterRecord

• SGL -> SGV

pulseDelayRecord

• STL -> STV
• GLNK -> GATE

pulseTrainRecord

• SGL -> HGV
  NOTE: This is a bug. The field should be SGV. Fixed 3.13.beta5.

selRecord

• INPA -> A NOTE A is not a prompt field
• INPB -> B NOTE B is not a prompt field
• ... for all INP links

seqRecord

• SELL -> SELN NOTE SELN is not a prompt field

stringinRecord

• SIOL -> SVAL NOTE SVAL is not a prompt field

stringoutRecord

• DOL -> VAL

A good way to find these problems is to use grep. For example:

        grep SELL */*.db

This assumes that you are in directory that contains subdirectorys containing .db files.

IOC Startup files

The command dbLoad is no longer supported. The new method is to issue one or more dbLoadDatabase commands and any combination of dbLoadRecords and dbLoadTemplate commands.

Other Release Notes

IOC Test routines

Many changes have been made to the EPICS ioc test routines, i.e., routines given to the vxWorks shell. Please read the chapter "IOC Test Facilities" in the Application Developer's Guide for details.

Changes to Record and Device Support

• Changes to record support modules (caused by looking for UDF problems)
• aaiRecord, aaoRecord - The siol field, which was never used in record processing, has been removed from aaiRecord.dbd and aaoRecord.dbd files. Old style, pre R3.12, c code in init_record was updated.
• compressRecord - Now allows Channel Access links for INP. It also sets READ_ALARM if it has bad or no input.
• dfanoutRecord, longoutRecord - In process the udf field is set to false when dbGetLink returns success only if dol is not a constant link.
• fanoutRecord - Now supports CA links. Same rules as FLNK.
• biRecord, mbbiRecord - Udf now set to false in put_enum_string when val is initialized.
• mbbiDirectRecord - Udf now set to false in process when val is initialized.
• mbbiDirectRecord, mbboDirectRecord, waitRecord - Old style, pre R3.12, c code in init_record was updated.
• pidRecord - Changes made to modify DB_LINK test on cvl field to allow type CA_LINK.
• pulseDelayRecord - Removed code that called recGblSetSevr is status non zero just before return. process always returns 0.
• pulseTrainRecord - process always returns 0.
• seqRecord - Changes made to modify DB_LINK tests on the lnk and dol fields to allow type CA_LINK.
• steppermotorRecord - In process the udf field is now set to false if dol is not a constant link and dbGetLink returns success. Changes made to modify DB_LINK test on rdbl field to allow type CA_LINK.
• stringoutRecord - In process the udf field is now set to false if dol is not a constant link and dbGetLink returns success.
• waveform record - While processing the udf field is now set to false if simulation mode is TRUE and siol is not a constant link and dbGetLink returns success.
• Device Support Changes
• devAiSoft, devBiSoft, devEventSoft, devLiSoft, devMbbiDirectSoft devMbbiSoft,devSiSoft - In init_record the udf field is set to false only if inp is a constant link and recGblInitConstantLink returns success. In read_xxx the udf field is set to false only if inp is not a constant link and dbGetLink returns success.
• devAiSoftRaw, devBiSoftRaw, devMbbiDirectSoftRaw, devMbbiSoftRaw - In init_record the udf field is no longer set to false if inp is a constant link and recGblInitConstantLink returns success (rval, not val, was successfully initialized).
• devLoSoft, devLoSymb, devMbboDirectSoft, devMbboSoft, devPtSoft, devSoSymb - The udf field is no longer set to false in write_xxx.
• devHistogramSoft, devHistogramTestAsyn - In init_record the udf field is set to false only if svl is a constant link and recGblInitConstantLink returns success.

Make rules and config files

The config environment has been extensively changed. BASE now has its own set of config files. Extensions will be able to use the base config files (for the version of base it is built against) and add it's own definitions. Changes to extensions will come at a future time.

GNU C++ for base

It is now possible to compile 3.13 EPICS base with the gnu C and C++ compilers. A C++ compiler that properly supports templates is required to build the new ca server and the gdd library.

log server

Thanks to William Lupton at KECK the log server will now (under the latest EPICS 3.13) obtain a new directory for the log file in response to SIGHUP.

CA repeater fix

Thanks to Kim Gillies, Bret Goodrich, and others at NOAO a problem has been discovered and fixed in the 3.12 CA repeater under solaris.

Portable CA server

A new CA server C++ class library is available. The server library is in libcas.a. The API is described in casdef.h. Doc is in progress. An example server tool can be found at base/src/cas/example. The server has been tested under sunos4 and solaris. A multi-threaded version of the new server for vxWorks is in progress.

Macro Substitution Library

The macro substitution library discussed in tech-talk is now part of epics base. Thus was contributed by Bill Lupton. The static database library uses this library. dbLoadRecords and dvbLoadTemplate also use it.

VXI Resource Manager fix

Thanks to Ric Claus of SLAC a bug has been isolated in the VXI resource manager.
Symptom: correct slot isnt located when EPICS_VXI_LA_BASE is set to something other than zero.

Access Security

If asSetFile has been set in a startup file and access security initialization fails, then iocInit returns -1 so that startup file does not finish.

errPrintf

On Unix this now calls fprintf(stderr instead of printf

iocLogClient.c

This now calls printf instead of epicsPrintf to prevent deadlocks.

Native type for DBF_USHORT

Formerlly old database access, which does not have unsigned short called the native type DBR_FLOAT. It now calls it DBF_LONG

Allen Bradley Driver

Analog Output Block Transfers were being requested too frequently

If link_status command fails (3 times in succession) adapters are now immediatly declared down.

For btRead and btWrite, The driver now enforces a timeout of 5 seconds which is 1 second more than scanner itself enforces. This is so that if scanner throws away a BT request it will still timeout.

For btRead and btWrite is is no longer permissible to issue a new btRead or btWrite from tha callback routine.

The on line doc has the following two changes:

• abConfigBaud has arguments (link,number) (Old doc was wrong)
• Now states that new btRead/btWrite can NOT be ussued from callback.

vmic2534

Support has been added by LBL. It still needs to be ansified.

New options for links

• CA means always make it a channel access link
• CP means CA + process when monitor occurs
• CPP means CA + process passive records when monitor occurs

dbAccess (dbGetField dbPutField) make sure that link field strings are not longer than 39 characters. They allow M for MS and N for NMS

callback and scan task names

The task names have been changed to make them unique

dbPutString

If the strlen of the new field is >= field_size an error is returned.

event scanned records

Multiple priorities are now supported.
WARNING: Default PRIO is low thus old event scanned records may be executed at a lower priority then previous release.

Allen Bradley Stepper Motor Support (Ric Claus SLAC)

Support for the allen bradley stepper motor is available. See the APS EPICS Hardware Support page for details.

initHooks

INITHOOKafterCaLinkInit1 is replaced by INITHOOKafterCaLinkInit
INITHOOKafterCaLinkInit2 no longer exists