> > I've seen that a similar question has been asked in 2011 but I'll ask again in 
> > case there are any updates. Is there any way to write 64-bit data words to MIDAS 
> > banks (other than breaking them up in to two 32-bit words, such as 2 DWORDs) 
> > currently? And if not, is there any plan to introduce this feature in the future?
> 
> There is no "breaking them up" as such, you can treat a midas bank as a char* array
> and store arbitrary data inside. In this sense, "there is no need" for a special 64-bit bank type.
> 
> For endian-ness conversion (if such things still matter, big-endian PPC CPUs still exist), single 64-bit 
> word converts the same as two 32-bit words, so here also "there is no need", once can use banks of 
> DWORD with equal effect.
> 
> The above applies equally to 64-bit integers and 64-bit double-precision IEEE-754 floating point 
> numbers.
> 
> But specifically for 64-bit values, such as float64, there is a big gotcha.
> 
> The MIDAS banks structure goes to great lengths to make sure each data type is correctly aligned,
> and gets it exactly wrong for 64-bit quantities - all because the bank header is three 32-bit words.
> 
> bankhheader1
> bh2
> bh3
> bankdata1 <--- misaligned
> ...
> bankdataN
> bh1
> bh2
> bh3
> banddata1 <--- aligned
> ... etc
> 
> So we could introduce QWORD banks today, but inside the midas file, they will be misaligned defeating 
> the only purpose of adding them.
> 
> I guess the misalignement could be cured by adding dummy words, dummy banks, dummy bank 
> headers, etc.
> 
> I figure this problem dates all the way bank where alignement to 16-bits was just getting important. 
> Today, in the VME word, I have to align things on 128-bit boundaries (for 2eSST 2x2 DWORD transfers).
> 
> So back to your question, what advantage do you see in using a QWORD bank instead of putting the 
> same data in a DWORD bank?
> 
> K.O.


Thanks very much for your reply. I have implemented your suggestion of treating the 64-bit array as a 32-bit 
array for the bank write/read and this solution is working for me.

Thanks again for your help.