Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:50:16 -0500

Hi Michael,

On 2013-04-23 [email protected] wrote:
> I've finally isolated the issue when calling ca_context_create(1) late ...
> and it's something to do with how the zero count is handled in
> ca_array_get_callback -- to be precise, when calling
> 
> 	ca_array_get_callback(dbrcode, 0, channel, callback, context)
> 
> the size of the returned array differs, depending on whether
> ca_context_create(1) was called before or after iocInit!  Note that this
> problem only occurs with internal PVs, for external PVs the correct count
> is returned in both cases.

Ok, this explains it, but hopefully Jeff will chime in too and look into a 
solution for the underlying problem.  If you call ca_context_create() before 
iocInit() your client then doesn't know about the server's local channels, 
because the server hasn't registered as a local channel provider with libCa 
yet.  Local channels allows the client library to search the local server for 
channel names directly before broadcasting them on the network.

Unfortunately there is a known and rather long-standing bug related to using 
local channels with an array count of zero:
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/epics-base/+bug/541393

> I've attached a complete example IOC

... and you thereby discovered by I don't recommend sending st.cmd files to 
tech-talk as attachments, even embedded inside a compressed tarfile or 
zipfile.  Spam filters are terrified of files with a .cmd extension in case 
they contain instructions that Windows will execute.  Just paste the contents 
of any st.cmd file into the message in the future.

> I can't find documentation for the expected behaviour of calling
> ca_array_get_callback() with a zero count, but I've never encountered
> problems with this before: up to now I've expected to get the "natural"
> record size.

http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/base/R3-14/12-docs/CAref.html#ca_get

The CA documentation does actually say (briefly!) what a count of zero is 
supposed to mean; look for COUNT under the Arguments detail.

Prior to 3.14.12 we didn't support dynamic array sizes and specifying a zero 
size was supposed to always give you the maximum size of the array; after 
3.14.12 it should give you just the number of elements the array currently 
holds.

- Andrew
-- 
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System