Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Ralph Lange <[email protected]> · Fri, 4 Jun 2004 12:31:19 +0200

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> writes:

  >> Inflating database from test.substitutions
  >> <string>: HOPR referenced but undefined
  >> macExpandString failed
  >> <string>: LOPR referenced but undefined
  >> macExpandString failed
  >> Installing database ../../../db/test.db
  >> rm test.t.db.raw

  > Unfortunately it does install the test.db file, when it should have 
  > aborted the make because of the errors - this is not a bug in 
  > dbLoadTemplates, it's a problem with the EPICS build system.

  > 

I actually would not see this as an error.

dbLoadRecords() on the IOC allows for macro substitutions at IOC load
time, so having undefined macros within a db file is legal.

If you are generating a somewhat generic db file with the template-
substitutions mechanism, but still want to substitute a macro at load
time (we usually provide things like the IOC name in that way), having
$(IOC) undefined during expansion on the host is the usual case.

At least under 3.13 - the App Developers Guide for 3.14 shows the
substitutions argument to the dbLoadRecords() call, but doesn't explain
it anymore. Instead it mentions "environment variable substitutions"
using curly braces (which I never heard of before - also the macLib
doesn't really show any difference between round and curly braces).

So: Is macro substitution within dbLoadRecords() deprecated under 3.14?
In that case make could actually abort when finding an undefined macro.

  > Note that the rules for how templates are expanded are found in the IOC 
  > application's <top>/config/RULES.Db file.  We assume that your RULES.Db 
  > has been modified to use msi instead of dbLoadTemplate.

Very true. We are indeed using MSI as the host side expansion tool -
trying to follow suggestions by Marty and the (3.14) App Developer's
Guide. The make output does not show this to the user (command line
suppressed).

My apologies for creating Bug Reports without double-checking before.

Cheers,
Ralph

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System