> ODBSET "/Path/value[1,3,5]"
> ODBSET "/Path/value[1-5,7-9]"

we support this array index syntax in several places,
specifically, in javascript odb get and set mjsonrpc RPCs.

> SET GOODCHANNELS, "1-5,7,9"; ODBSET "/Path/value[$GOODCHANNELS]"
> SET BADCHANNELS, "6,8"; ODBSET "/Path/value[!$BADCHANNELS]"
> ODBSET "/Path/value[0-100, except $BADCHANNELS]"

this is very clever syntax, but I have not seen any programming
language actually implement it (not even perl).

there must be a good reason why nobody does this. probably we should not do it either.

but as Stefan said (and my opinion), the route of extending MIDAS sequencer
language until it becomes a superset of python, perl, tcl, bash, javascript
and algol is not a sustainable approach. I once looked at using LUA for this,
but I think basing off an full featured programming language like python
is better.

K.O.

 I once looked at using LUA for this,
> but I think basing off an full featured programming language like python
> is better.

if it came to a vote, my vote would go to Lua: it would allow to do everything needed, 
with much less external dependencies and with much less motivation to over-use the interpreter. 
The CMS experience was very teaching in this respect... 

-- my 2c, regards, Pasha

> I once looked at using LUA for this
>
> > but I think basing off an full featured programming language like python
> > is better.
> 
> if it came to a vote, my vote would go to Lua: it would allow to do everything needed, 
> with much less external dependencies and with much less motivation to over-use the interpreter. 
> The CMS experience was very teaching in this respect... 

Unfortunately I am only slightly aware of Lua to say how nicve or how bad it is. And we are
not sure how well it supports the single-line-stepping that permits the nice graphical
visualization of Stefan's sequencer.

It looks like python has the single-line-stepping built-in as a standard feature
and python is a more popular and more versatile machine, so to me python looks
like a better choice compared to lua (obscure), perl ("nobody uses it anymore")
or bash (ugly syntax).

K.O.

And there is one more argument: 

We have a Python expert in our development team who wrote already the Python-to-C bindings. That means when running a Python 
script, we can already start/stop runs, write/read to the ODB etc. We only have to get the single stepping going which seems feasible to 
me, since there are some libraries like inspect.currentframe() and traceback.extract_stack(). For single-stepping there are debug APIs 
like debugpy. With Lua we really would have to start from scratch.

Stefan

Hi all,

Would it be possible to extend manalyzer to support custom .root file names that include the run number? 

As far as I understand, the current behavior is as follows:
The default filename is ./root_output_files/output%05d.root , which can be customized by the following two command line arguments.

-Doutputdirectory: Specify output root file directory
-Ooutputfile.root: Specify output root file filename

If an output file name is specified with -O, -D is ignored, so the full path should be provided to -O. 

I am aiming to write files where the filename contains sufficient information to be unique (e.g., experiment, year, and run number). However, if I specify it with -O, this would require restarting manalyzer after every run; a scenario that I would like to avoid if possible.

Please find a suggestion of how manalyzer could be extended to introduce this functionality through an additional command line argument at
https://bitbucket.org/krieger_j/manalyzer/commits/24f25bc8fe3f066ac1dc576349eabf04d174deec

Above code would allow the following call syntax: ' ./manalyzer.exe -O/data/experiment1_%06d.root --OutputNumbered '
But note that as is, it would fail if a user specifies an incompatible format such as -Ooutput%s.root . 

So a safer, but less flexible option might be to instead have the user provide only a prefix, and then attach %05d.root in the code.

Thank you for considering these suggestions!

Dear MIDAS experts, 

currently, the MIDAS messaging system is optimized for one-line long messages, 
so the content of 2+liners shows up in the message log in the reverse order, 
with the first line on the bottom of the message. 

I wonder if printing the message content in the reverse order, starting from the last line, 
would make sense ? - that wouldn't affect one-line long messages, but could make longer 
messages more useful. 

--thanks, regards, Pasha