> > Revision: r5286 
> > Platform: Debian Linux 6.0.5 AMD64, with packages from squeeze-backports 
> > Problem:
> > After building and installation, using the script 'start_daq.sh' to start
> > 'sampleexpt'. Everything seems fine. But I cannot start a run through web. Using
> > 'odbedit' and 'mtransition' to start/stop a run works fine. So, what may cause
> > such a problem?
> 
> Well, it's mhttpd who cannot start the run, not you. So what happens when you press
> the "start run" button? Any errors in midas.log or in midas messages? Is mtransition
> in your PATH?
> 
> K.O.

I found the problem only appears when I run mhttpd in scripts, whether bash or python.
And I'm quite sure that the MIDAS environments (e.g. PATH, MIDAS_EXPTAB, MIDASSYS, etc.)
are set in such scripts. If I start mhttpd in an xterm with or without "-D", it works
fine. So, what's the difference between invoking mhttpd directly and through a script?

> I found the problem only appears when I run mhttpd in scripts, whether bash or python.
> And I'm quite sure that the MIDAS environments (e.g. PATH, MIDAS_EXPTAB, MIDASSYS, etc.)
> are set in such scripts. If I start mhttpd in an xterm with or without "-D", it works
> fine. So, what's the difference between invoking mhttpd directly and through a script?

When you start it with "-D", then mhttpd become a daemon. According to linux rules, it has to "cd /", so it lives in the 
root directory, in order not to block any NFS mount/unmount. If something with the path is not correct then, mhttpd 
cannot find mtransition then. Once I fixed that problem my moving mtransition to /usr/bin.

Stefan

> > I found the problem only appears when I run mhttpd in scripts, whether bash or python.
> > And I'm quite sure that the MIDAS environments (e.g. PATH, MIDAS_EXPTAB, MIDASSYS, etc.)
> > are set in such scripts. If I start mhttpd in an xterm with or without "-D", it works
> > fine. So, what's the difference between invoking mhttpd directly and through a script?
> 
> When you start it with "-D", then mhttpd become a daemon. According to linux rules, it has to "cd /", so it lives in the 
> root directory, in order not to block any NFS mount/unmount. If something with the path is not correct then, mhttpd 
> cannot find mtransition then. Once I fixed that problem my moving mtransition to /usr/bin.
> 

I agree. Somehow mhttpd cannot run mtransition. I am not super happy with this dependance on user $PATH settings and the inability to capture error messages 
from attempts to start mtransition. I am now thinking in the direction of running mtransition code by forking. But remember that mlogger and the event builder also
have to use mtransition to stop runs (otherwise they can dead-lock). So an mhttpd-only solution is not good enough...

K.O.

> > > Revision: r5286 
> > > Platform: Debian Linux 6.0.5 AMD64, with packages from squeeze-backports 
> 
> I found the problem only appears when I run mhttpd in scripts, whether bash or python.
> And I'm quite sure that the MIDAS environments (e.g. PATH, MIDAS_EXPTAB, MIDASSYS, etc.)
> are set in such scripts. If I start mhttpd in an xterm with or without "-D", it works
> fine.

Right. I see Debian 6.0.5 just came out hot off the presses. Would be good to fix this problem.

As a work around, can you run mhttpd without "-D", but in the background, i.e. "mhttpd -p xxx >& mhttpd.log &"?

Also what are your $PATH settings?

> So, what's the difference between invoking mhttpd directly and through a script?

As Stefan mentioned, "-D" invokes some nasty unix magic to disconnect the process from the user login session. It is 
possible that this magic breaks in the latest Debian.

MIDAS "-D" does roughly the same thing as "nohup".

K.O.

> I agree. Somehow mhttpd cannot run mtransition. I am not super happy with this dependance on user $PATH settings and the inability to capture error messages 
> from attempts to start mtransition. I am now thinking in the direction of running mtransition code by forking. But remember that mlogger and the event builder also
> have to use mtransition to stop runs (otherwise they can dead-lock). So an mhttpd-only solution is not good enough...

The way to go is to make cm_transition multi-threaded. Like on thread for each client to be contacted. This way the transition can go in parallel when there are many frontend computers for example, which will speed up 
transitions significantly. In addition, cm_transition should execute a callback whenever a client succeeded or failed, so to give immediate feedback to the user. I think of something like implementing WebSockets in mhttpd for that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket).

I have this in mind since many years, but did not have time to implement it yet. Maybe on my next visit to TRIUMF?

Stefan

Dear All,

I got a "Cannot open input file" error when I tried to analyze a .mid.gz file with 
size over 5 GB on a 32-bit Linux. The error traced back to gzopen() in mana.c 
where it returned NULL when opening the file. I understand that 32-bit Linux may 
not be able to handle files with size over 2 GB. I tried to add -
D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 to CFLAGS in the Makefile of MIDAS and 
the analyzer, but I still got the same error. Is there any workarounds that enable 
me to analyze large files on 32-bit systems?

p.s. The data file was also produced on a 32-bit Linux.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Jimmy

Dear All,

Thanks Konstantin Olchanski for providing me a hint. The file can be opened now after I 
changed the line: 

file->gzfile = gzopen(file_name, "rb");

in function ma_open() in mana.c to the followings: 

INT fd = open(file_name, O_RDONLY | O_LARGEFILE);
if (fd <= 0)
   return NULL;

file->gzfile = gzdopen(fd, "rb");

No modifications to the Makefile is needed in this case.

Best Regards,
Jimmy


> Dear All,
> 
> I got a "Cannot open input file" error when I tried to analyze a .mid.gz file with 
> size over 5 GB on a 32-bit Linux. The error traced back to gzopen() in mana.c 
> where it returned NULL when opening the file. I understand that 32-bit Linux may 
> not be able to handle files with size over 2 GB. I tried to add -
> D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 to CFLAGS in the Makefile of MIDAS and 
> the analyzer, but I still got the same error. Is there any workarounds that enable 
> me to analyze large files on 32-bit systems?
> 
> p.s. The data file was also produced on a 32-bit Linux.
> 
> Thanks & Best Regards,
> 
> Jimmy

I'm brand new to MIDAS, and C system programming in general, so please be
gentle. I've compiled and installed MIDAS 2.3.0 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I've built
the kernel driver, khyt1331.ko and installed it. It appears to be working, since
the camactest and esonetest programs included with the driver work just fine.

So I attempted to build the example experiment distributed with MIDAS, with the
following changes to the Makefile:

DRV_DIR   = $(MIDASSYS)/drivers/kernel/khyt1331_26

and

DRIVER = camac

The programs build without error but when I try to start the frontend, I get:

$ ./frontend
Frontend name          :     CSM-Nuclear Portable DAQ Frontend
Event buffer size      :     1000000
User max event size    :     10000
User max frag. size    :     5242880
# of events per buffer :     100

Connect to experiment...
*** buffer overflow detected ***: ./frontend terminated
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x50)[0x6de390]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(+0xe12ca)[0x6dd2ca]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__strcpy_chk+0x44)[0x6dc644]
./frontend[0x805611f]
./frontend[0x806f656]
./frontend[0x8053d82]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x612bd6]
./frontend[0x804bb81]
======= Memory map: ========
00110000-0012d000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7471187    /lib/libgcc_s.so.1
0012d000-0012e000 r--p 0001c000 08:05 7471187    /lib/libgcc_s.so.1
0012e000-0012f000 rw-p 0001d000 08:05 7471187    /lib/libgcc_s.so.1
00264000-00277000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603242    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnsl-2.11.1.so
00277000-00278000 r--p 00012000 08:05 7603242    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnsl-2.11.1.so
00278000-00279000 rw-p 00013000 08:05 7603242    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnsl-2.11.1.so
00279000-0027b000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
002db000-002dd000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603265   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libutil-2.11.1.so
002dd000-002de000 r--p 00001000 08:05 7603265   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libutil-2.11.1.so
002de000-002df000 rw-p 00002000 08:05 7603265   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libutil-2.11.1.so
003b1000-003c6000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603257   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread-2.11.1.so
003c6000-003c7000 r--p 00014000 08:05 7603257   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread-2.11.1.so
003c7000-003c8000 rw-p 00015000 08:05 7603257   
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread-2.11.1.so
003c8000-003ca000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
004ea000-004f1000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603261    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt-2.11.1.so
004f1000-004f2000 r--p 00006000 08:05 7603261    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt-2.11.1.so
004f2000-004f3000 rw-p 00007000 08:05 7603261    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt-2.11.1.so
005fb000-005fc000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0          [vdso]
005fc000-0074f000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603231    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.11.1.so
0074f000-00750000 ---p 00153000 08:05 7603231    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.11.1.so
00750000-00752000 r--p 00153000 08:05 7603231    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.11.1.so
00752000-00753000 rw-p 00155000 08:05 7603231    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc-2.11.1.so
00753000-00756000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
00783000-00796000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7471302    /lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3
00796000-00797000 r--p 00012000 08:05 7471302    /lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3
00797000-00798000 rw-p 00013000 08:05 7471302    /lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3
008ab000-008c6000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7471129    /lib/ld-2.11.1.so
008c6000-008c7000 r--p 0001a000 08:05 7471129    /lib/ld-2.11.1.so
008c7000-008c8000 rw-p 0001b000 08:05 7471129    /lib/ld-2.11.1.so
008e4000-00908000 r-xp 00000000 08:05 7603239    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm-2.11.1.so
00908000-00909000 r--p 00023000 08:05 7603239    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm-2.11.1.so
00909000-0090a000 rw-p 00024000 08:05 7603239    /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm-2.11.1.so
08048000-0809d000 r-xp 00000000 08:11 20318114   /home/midas/online/test/frontend
0809d000-0809e000 r--p 00055000 08:11 20318114   /home/midas/online/test/frontend
0809e000-080a3000 rw-p 00056000 08:11 20318114   /home/midas/online/test/frontend
080a3000-080c5000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
0835f000-08380000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0          [heap]
b7881000-b7884000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
b7893000-b7895000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0 
bf938000-bf94d000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0          [stack]
Aborted

Please help me figure out what's going wrong!

Thank you,
Jon

Dear experts, 
I am a new user of MIDAS. I have just created some banks by a frontend.cxx code.
Now, I would like to do some analysis from the data.

I have an analyzer.cxx code (A very simple one without complicated routine).

I try to link the analyzer.o with rmana.o and libmidas.a to create analyzer.exe

I am not sure whether I can do the analysis offline in the follow way:

analyzer.exe -i run00001.mid -o run00001.root

When I run this command,  I get the following error:

Error in <TClass::LoadClassInfo>: no interpreter information for class TSocket is available even though it has a TClass initialization routine.

I am using root 6.30

Any suggestion about this issue? Thank you.

Best,
Terry

"Can we convert the .mid file into .root file".

yes, you can, but the operation is under-defined. it's like asking "can I convert these stones into houses". the answer is "yes", but it involves 
more than running a universal conversion program.

For this reason, I recommend against converting midas files "to root". for some types of midas data such a conversion makes no sense (i.e. alpha-g 
streamed udp packets with chopped compressed waveforms).

I recommend that you analyze you data in the midas analyzer. You can start with manalyzer_example_root.cxx,
it shows how to create a ROOT histogram, how to access midas event bank data and call the TH1 "Fill" method.

Instead of filling histograms in the analyzer, you can create a ROOT TTree and fill it with data from midas data banks,
effectively you will create your own custom converter from midas to root.

The key thing is that it has to be a custom converter, because only you know the meaning of midas bank data
and how it should be best stored in a root tree.

K.O.

Can the MIDAS Sequencer call an external script? It seems that it should be able to. I have a simple 
test script to do so. It claims to execute, but the bash script never appears to be executed. Any 
suggestions?

1 COMMENT "This is a MSL test file"
  2 RUNDESCRIPTION "Test run"
  3 
  4 LOOP setting, 1,2, 3
  5      SCRIPT test_wheel.sh ,$setting 
  6      TRANSITION START
  7      WAIT Seconds 10
  8      TRANSITION STOP
  9 ENDLOOP

I've also tried using an xml script with <Script params="1">test_wheel.sh</Script>, but with the same 
result.

Thanks!

Nevermind. I just had to give it a path to my script. Now it's fine. 

> Can the MIDAS Sequencer call an external script? It seems that it should be able to. I have a simple 
> test script to do so. It claims to execute, but the bash script never appears to be executed. Any 
> suggestions?
> 
> 1 COMMENT "This is a MSL test file"
>   2 RUNDESCRIPTION "Test run"
>   3 
>   4 LOOP setting, 1,2, 3
>   5      SCRIPT test_wheel.sh ,$setting 
>   6      TRANSITION START
>   7      WAIT Seconds 10
>   8      TRANSITION STOP
>   9 ENDLOOP
> 
> I've also tried using an xml script with <Script params="1">test_wheel.sh</Script>, but with the same 
> result.
> 
> Thanks!

Dear all,
       I'm trying to compile MIDAS on MacOS 10.10 and I get this error:

/Users/francesco/MIDAS/midas/src/system.cxx:3187:18: error: use of undeclared identifier 
'CLOCK_REALTIME'
   clock_settime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ltm);

Is it related to my (old) version of MacOS? Can I fix it somehow?

Thank you,
      Francesco

> Dear all,
>        I'm trying to compile MIDAS on MacOS 10.10 and I get this error:
> 
> /Users/francesco/MIDAS/midas/src/system.cxx:3187:18: error: use of undeclared identifier 
> 'CLOCK_REALTIME'
>    clock_settime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ltm);
> 
> Is it related to my (old) version of MacOS? Can I fix it somehow?
> 
> Thank you,
>       Francesco

If I see this correctly, you need at least MacOSX 10.12. If you can't upgrade, you can just remove line 3187 
from system.cxx. This function is only used in an online environment, where you would run a frontend on your 
Mac, which you probably don't do. So removing it does not hurt you.

Stefan

> > /Users/francesco/MIDAS/midas/src/system.cxx:3187:18: error: use of undeclared identifier 
> > 'CLOCK_REALTIME'
> >    clock_settime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ltm);
> > 
> > Is it related to my (old) version of MacOS? Can I fix it somehow?

I think the "set clock" function is a holdover from embedded operating systems
that did not keep track of clock time, i.e. VxWorks, and similar. Here a midas program
will get the time from the mserver and set it on the local system. Poor man's ntp,
poor man's ntpd/chronyd.

We should check if this function is called by anything, and if nothing calls it, maybe remove it?

K.O.

> > > /Users/francesco/MIDAS/midas/src/system.cxx:3187:18: error: use of undeclared identifier 
> > > 'CLOCK_REALTIME'
> > >    clock_settime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ltm);
> > > 
> > > Is it related to my (old) version of MacOS? Can I fix it somehow?
> 
> I think the "set clock" function is a holdover from embedded operating systems
> that did not keep track of clock time, i.e. VxWorks, and similar. Here a midas program
> will get the time from the mserver and set it on the local system. Poor man's ntp,
> poor man's ntpd/chronyd.
> 
> We should check if this function is called by anything, and if nothing calls it, maybe remove it?
> 
> K.O.

It's called in mfe.cxx via cm_synchronize:

/* set time from server */
#ifdef OS_VXWORKS
   cm_synchronize(NULL);
#endif

This was for old VxWorks systems which had no ntp/crond. Was asked for by Pierre long time ago. I don't use it 
(have no VxWorks). We can either remove it completely, or remove just the MacOSX part and just exit the program 
if called with an error message "not implemented on this OS".

Stefan

> > Affected files:
> > Makefile (add cnaf_callback.o)
> That's a good idea.
> To make things a bit easier, I modified the midas\examples\experiment\fronted.c to
> contain this call, so people should be guided by that. I also added cnaf_callback.c
> to the Makefile of the example frontend.

A request was made to remove cnaf_callback.o from libmidas as it creates a unwanted dependency on the CAMAC 
hardware driver when libmidas.so is used in programs that do not use CAMAC.

After looking around, it appears that removing cnaf_callback.o from libmidas would not break anything critical, 
other than CAMAC frontends that would fail to link with an obvious and easy to fix error.

I am leaving cnaf_callback.o in the Makefile - so it will be built and placed in linux/lib/cnaf_callback.o for anybody 
who wants to use it.

svn revision 4130.

K.O.

Some time ago, the "remote CAMAC" functionality in mfe.c was made conditional on
HAVE_CAMAC. This flag is not set by default so remote camac calls silently do
not work, unless midas is compiled in a special way. I am too lazy to compile
midas differently depending on what hardware I use, so I split
register_cnaf_callback() into a separate file and made it easy to call directly
from the user front end.

I left the HAVE_CAMAC bits in mfe.c so people who use that would see no change.

Affected files:
Makefile (add cnaf_callback.o)
midas.h (add void register_cnaf_callback(int debug);
mfe.c (move the rpc code to cnaf_callback.c, call register_cnaf_callback())
cnaf_callback.c (new file)

K.O.

> Some time ago, the "remote CAMAC" functionality in mfe.c was made conditional on
> HAVE_CAMAC. This flag is not set by default so remote camac calls silently do
> not work, unless midas is compiled in a special way. I am too lazy to compile
> midas differently depending on what hardware I use, so I split
> register_cnaf_callback() into a separate file and made it easy to call directly
> from the user front end.
> 
> I left the HAVE_CAMAC bits in mfe.c so people who use that would see no change.
> 
> Affected files:
> Makefile (add cnaf_callback.o)
> midas.h (add void register_cnaf_callback(int debug);
> mfe.c (move the rpc code to cnaf_callback.c, call register_cnaf_callback())
> cnaf_callback.c (new file)
> 
> K.O.

That's a good idea. The frontend framework should be independent of the used
hardware (CAMAC or VME or whatever). I event went further and removed the HAVE_CAMAC
completely. This means that people have to add the call to register_cnaf_callback()
explicitly into the frontend user init routine. I think this inconvenience is not a
big deal because even before that people had to add the cnaf_callback.c file
explicitely into their Makefile. So they have to be aware of that change, and then
it's not a big deal to modify the init routine as well. But this way we have mfe.c
completely independen of the DAQ hardware which is how it should be.

To make things a bit easier, I modified the midas\examples\experiment\fronted.c to
contain this call, so people should be guided by that. I also added cnaf_callback.c
to the Makefile of the example frontend.

Hi All,

Is there any example code for using MIDAS with the CAEN VME-USB Bridge V1718? 
Thanks.

Regards,
Jimmy