Hi,
    I found that midas banks can be given an extra 32 bits of zeros when
trying to keep to 32bit boundary on my x86_64. 

This can be fixed by changing (in midas.h)
#define ALIGN8(x)  (((x)+7) & ~7)
to
#define ALIGN8(x)  (((x)+3) & ~3)

Is there any bad consequences doing this?

Hi

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this query (if it is not, I would truly appreciate it if someone could point me at the right forum). I'm having a little bit of trouble with the setup of a Midas system.

Now, this is a system that I inherited after the previous guy who was looking after it went to other employment. There was a point at which it was working. And then there was an unrelated issue in the electrical system which, as a side effect, meant that the building lost power for a time, and the entire system had to be rebooted.

No problem, I thought. I'll just reset and restart all of the software...

...and I can't seem to get it to work. I keep getting the error message "mvme_read_value: Could not perform read!: Bad address". So far as I can tell, this seems to be related to the idea that the base address being used to read from the boards is incorrect. The base addresses are hardcoded in the software (not autogenerated) and, aside from the power going down and up again, the hardware hasn't been touched since the system was working.

I imagine that there is something that needs to be set, twiddled, tweaked, or turned on in the driver. The output of 'lsmod | grep vme' is:

vmedriver             117742  0

so presumably the driver is at least *present*, even if I have no idea how to twiddle anything on it.

Could anyone perhaps suggest a way forward? Is there some way to gather the information that I need, perhaps, or some way to twiddle anything twiddle-able on the driver?

Casey

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone has attempted to install MIDAS under Scientific Linux 6?  I am planning to install 
Scientific Linux on one of the PCs in our lab to run MIDAS. I would like to know if anyone has been 
successful in getting MIDAS to run under SL6.  Thanks.

Cheng-Ju

Hi All,

I've installed midas (Rev:5294) on SLC6.3 (64bit), along with recent trunk versions of rootana and roody. 
All the packages compiled OK. The example code in $MIDASSYS/examples/experiment also runs OK 
provided that I don't launch roody. If I try to launch roody, then it immediately crashes the analyzer with 
the following trace:

#6 root_server_thread (arg=ox7f54fc001150) at src/mana.c:5154
#7 0x0000003219a1e13a in TThread::Function(void*) () from /usr/lib64/root/libThread.so.5.28
#8 0x0000003dd1207851 in start_thread () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
#9 0x0000003dd0ee76dd in clone () from /lib64/libc.so.6

The line src/mana.c:5154 points to the following:

TObject *obj;
            if (strncmp(request + 10, "Any", 3) == 0)
               obj = folder->FindObjectAny(request + 14);
            else
               obj = folder->FindObject(request + 11);    // LINE 5154


Any suggestions on what may be going on here?  Thanks.


Cheng-Ju

OK, I've found the solution in the roody forum.  The solution for 64bit machine is to replace
   uint32_t p =0;
   with
   uintptr_t p =0;

in the roody header file roody/include/DataSourceTNetFolder.h

Cheng-Ju



> Hi All,
> 
> I've installed midas (Rev:5294) on SLC6.3 (64bit), along with recent trunk versions of rootana and roody. 
> All the packages compiled OK. The example code in $MIDASSYS/examples/experiment also runs OK 
> provided that I don't launch roody. If I try to launch roody, then it immediately crashes the analyzer with 
> the following trace:
> 
> #6 root_server_thread (arg=ox7f54fc001150) at src/mana.c:5154
> #7 0x0000003219a1e13a in TThread::Function(void*) () from /usr/lib64/root/libThread.so.5.28
> #8 0x0000003dd1207851 in start_thread () from /lib64/libpthread.so.0
> #9 0x0000003dd0ee76dd in clone () from /lib64/libc.so.6
> 
> The line src/mana.c:5154 points to the following:
> 
> TObject *obj;
>             if (strncmp(request + 10, "Any", 3) == 0)
>                obj = folder->FindObjectAny(request + 14);
>             else
>                obj = folder->FindObject(request + 11);    // LINE 5154
> 
> 
> Any suggestions on what may be going on here?  Thanks.
> 
> 
> Cheng-Ju

Hi Konstantin,

Many thanks for your feedback.  I was able to keep the analyzer from exiting when launching roody by making some changes in the roody code. 
This at least allows me to keep moving forward. I will look into your suggestion of converting to ROOTANA based analyzer as well.

Regards,

Cheng-Ju


> > I've installed midas (Rev:5294) on SLC6.3 (64bit), along with recent trunk versions of rootana and roody. 
> >
> > #6 root_server_thread (arg=ox7f54fc001150) at src/mana.c:5154
> 
> You are connecting to mana, the old midas analyzer. The code for connecting to it is still present in roody,
> but I cannot support the matching server code in mana.c - it is 2 revolutions behind the current state of
> the ROOT object server (look in ROOTANA - the NetDirectory stuff and the latest is the XmlServer stuff).
> 
> I can offer 2 solutions - switch from mana.c to a ROOTANA based analyzer or graft the XmlServer code
> into your analyzer (it is very simple - you need to create an XmlServer object and tell it which ROOT
> containers you want to make visible to ROODY).
> 
> I guess you can also debug the old midas server code inside mana.c...
> 
> K.O.

Hello,

I'm trying to get a frontend running on an arduino yun single board computer
(cpu is Atheros AR9331 and OS is a linux derivate
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardYun ) 

The idea is to use this device for some slow control for our experiment (ASACUSA
Antihydrogen) we are using midas as main DAQ system and we would like to
integrate the slow control with this small boards. My question is: How can I
compile the midas library with the openwrt crosscompiler? the system discspace
is very limited (6 MB) therefore I don't want to have mysql, zlib an so on.
Other software can be stored on an sd-card.

 In the end what I would need is only creating hotlinks to the odb on our server
to get and report the current and desired values.

Do you have any suggestions on how to realize something like that?

Thanks!

Ok, I'm currently trying to get things running, setting up a crosscompiler toolchain for the Arduino Yun is fairly
easy, just follow the tutorial on the  OpenWrt webpage.

The main problem is that openwrt uses the uClibc library instead of glibc this produces lots of difficulties, first
one is that building of the shared library is complaining about symbol name mismatches, but I guess this can be
fixed somehow, I wont use the midas-shared library, therefore I just disabled it in the Makefile. 

The next problem is the backtrace functions tjhat are used within system.c, the functions backtrace and
backtrace_symbols are only available in glibc for a quick fix I just changed the #ifdef directive in a way that this
code is not built. 
 

There is a more tricky problem, the compiler complains about mismatched function defintions:

In file included from include/midasinc.h:17:0,
                 from include/msystem.h:35,
                 from src/sequencer.cxx:13:
/home/clemens/arduino/openwrt-yun/build_dir/toolchain-mips_r2_gcc-4.6-linaro_uClibc-0.9.33.2/uClibc-0.9.33.2/include/string.h:495:41:
error: declaration of 'size_t strlcat(char*, const char*, size_t) throw ()' has a different exception specifier
include/midas.h:1955:17: error: from previous declaration 'size_t strlcat(char*, const char*, size_t)'
/home/clemens/arduino/openwrt-yun/build_dir/toolchain-mips_r2_gcc-4.6-linaro_uClibc-0.9.33.2/uClibc-0.9.33.2/include/string.h:498:41:
error: declaration of 'size_t strlcpy(char*, const char*, size_t) throw ()' has a different exception specifier
include/midas.h:1954:17: error: from previous declaration 'size_t strlcpy(char*, const char*, size_t)'

This can be solved by editing the midas.h file:
size_t EXPRT strlcpy(char *dst, const char *src, size_t size); -> size_t EXPRT strlcpy(char *dst, const char *src,
size_t size) __THROW __nonnull ((1, 2));

and 

size_t EXPRT strlcat(char *dst, const char *src, size_t size); -> size_t EXPRT strlcat(char *dst, const char *src,
size_t size) __THROW __nonnull ((1, 2));

the same trick has to be done in ../mxml/strlcpy.h

After changing this midas compiles with the crosscompiler and the resulting programs are executable on the Arduino
Yun. I'll report back if I got my frontend to run and connect to the midas server.

Thank you very much for your input, it finally works. I succeeded in crosscompiling the frontend and running it on the ArduinoYun. The 64 MB RAM is more than
enough to run the mserver and a frontend and connect to a remote midas server over ethernet or wifi. 

Yust for reference if someone tries something similar: to directly access the serial interface between the Linux running processor and the Atmel processor it
is required to comment out a line in /etc/inittab: #ttyATH0::askfirst:/bin/ash --login
 this line starts a shell on the serial connection, by preventing this it is possible to run more or less unmodified code (serial interface needs to be
Serial1) on the Atmel side and use the linux processor as slow control pc.

Thanks again for your help!

Hello,

we are using the Struck SIS 3100 VME interface for our experiment, but the midas
driver doesn't have interrupt control integrated. Previously we were happy with
just periodic readout, but our requirements have changed so I thought I could
just implement this as there is a demo program provided by Struck on how to use
their driver with interrupts.

Could you recommend an existing midas driver that has a good implementation of
the midas interrupt functions (mvme_interrupt_*) just for me too use as a guideline?

Best regards,
Clemens Sauerzopf

Hi Pierre-Andre,

thanks for your comments. If I understand you correctly you are advising to separate the
triggering based on the interrupt signal and the actual data readout. In principal wouldn't
it be also possible to facilitate the multi-threading equipment type to poll the trigger
signal? Then veto new triggers and start the readout of the different detector modules by a
"manual trigger" ?

I'll check the example you've recommended to compare the different solutions.

By the way I've written a driver for the CAEN V1742 VME module, it's working but the code is
currently not in a "nice" state. but if you are interested I could provide the driver code.

Cheers,
Clemens

> > Hello,
> > 
> > we are using the Struck SIS 3100 VME interface for our experiment, but the midas
> > driver doesn't have interrupt control integrated. Previously we were happy with
> > just periodic readout, but our requirements have changed so I thought I could
> > just implement this as there is a demo program provided by Struck on how to use
> > their driver with interrupts.
> > 
> > Could you recommend an existing midas driver that has a good implementation of
> > the midas interrupt functions (mvme_interrupt_*) just for me too use as a guideline?
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > Clemens Sauerzopf
> 
> Hi Clemens,
> 
> We did have interrupt handling at some point under VxWorks and later with Linux, but it 
> has always been a challenge.
> As you may have found, the current frontend (mfe.c) still has some code to that purpose. 
> But I wouldn't guarantee that recent development related to multi-threading didn't 
> affect the expected interrupt operation (not been tested).
> 
> Now-a-days, I would suggest that you encapsulate your interrupt handling function based 
> on the provided software into a independent thread started by a standard midas frontend. 
> While the main frontend task could operate a periodic equipment as you've done so far, a 
> polling equipment would poll on the data availability from the ring buffer. The readout 
> function would compose the appropriate data bank.
> 
> This method has the advantage to decouple all the interrupt timing/restriction related 
> issues from midas and run a conventional frontend. The ring buffer functions are part of 
> midas (rb_...()).
> Example for multi-threading can be found in examples/mtfe which include the use of the 
> ring buffer as well.
> 
> Cheers, PAA

Hello all, 

as discussed in the thread about Interrupt triggered readout
(https://midas.triumf.ca/elog/Midas/1016) I send you out driver for the CAEN
V1742 modules.

The code is separated into two different parts, first the real midas driver
(attachment 1).
Here the non trivial part is reading the modules internal flash pages to get to
correction patterns for the DRS4 chips, this is not documented in the manual.

The functions to apply the correction patters to the data is in the second
archive (attachment 2). I have to say this is C++ code as we use this with rootana.

The driver including the signal correction was used for data taking in 2012 with
4 synchronized V1742 modules for Antihydrogen experiment by the ASACUSA
collaboration at cern. We'll use it gain this year.

I hope the archives contain all necessary information, some parts were
distributed in various files..

Cheers,
Clemens

EDIT: the driver is based on the v1740 driver

Hello Pierre-Andre,

thank you for your help with the interrupt handling. To close this case I'll
attach my interrupt
handling code for the SIS 3100 to this post as a reference. Maybe someone wants
to do something
similar in the future. 

I've decide to go for a C++ frontend therefore it is a class that handles
everything. The user only
has to provide a function pointer to the constructor that handles the interrupt
bitmask. The
interrupt handling is done with a timedwait within a separate thread. 

Cheers,
Clemens

> Hello Clemens,
> 
> The hardware readout is triggered by the interrupt within this thread. The
main thread poll on  
> the data availability (from the rb) to filter/compose the frontend event.
> In a similar multi-threaded implementation presently used in a dark matter
experiment we start 
> as many thread as necessary to constantly poll on the hardware for "data
fragment" collection.
> The event composition is done in the main thread through polling on the RBs.
> 
> Depending on the trigger rate and readout time, we can afford to analyze the
data fragment at 
> the thread level and add computed/summary information to the ring buffer on a
event-by-event 
> basis. This facilitate the overall event filtering happening later on in our
event builder. 
> 
> "polling the trigger signal?", I don't understand. You can poll on the trigger
condition but 
> then you don't need interrupt.
> 
> The original Midas interrupt implementation was to let the interrupt function
set a acknowledge 
> flag which is picked up by the standard midas polling function (user code) for
triggering the 
> readout. This method ensure a minimal time spent in the IRQ and works fine for
a single thread.
> 
> In regards of the CAEN V1742, we do have a VME driver for it, but it hasn't
been added to the 
> Midas yet (quite recent), but please don't hesitate to send us a copy.
> 
> Cheers, PAA
> 

Hello all,

As an addition to the driver functions I uploaded in this thread I would also have a
C++ class that handles everything for the V1742 modules and can be directly used
integrated into a C++ frontend. 

I would like to ask if you have policy for user supplied code like this? It's not a low
level driver but a frontend module that reads and controls the module, creates odb
hotlinks and handles the bank creating and storing of the data.

Best regards,
Clemens

EDIT: the question is, do you like to have  codes like this collected somewhere for
example this forum or would you prefer if I would post a link to some online repository =

Hello,

I'm currently trying to create a midas bank for basic temperature reading from the Arduino Yun, but when creating a bank the frontend crashed with a segfault, my
code currently looks like this:

INT read_event(char *pevent, INT off)
{
  WORD *data;
  //printf("before init\n");
  bk_init(pevent);
  //printf("after init\n");
  bk_create(pevent, "TEM0", TID_WORD, data); // <= we are dieing at this line
  //printf("after create\n");

  bk_close(pevent, data);

  return bk_size(pevent);
}

Does anyone have an Idea how to tackle this problem down? running a debugger is a little bit tricky on a this processor..

Thanks!

Hello, 
   Is there any example code for using midas for interrupt driven data
collection over VME? I am using a Struck SIS3100 PCI/VME setup to connect to my
VME crate.  Thanks,
  -Dan

We use the "Edit-on-start" and it's great.  But sometimes, something breaks
during the run, or you didn't realize you forgot to plug in a cable, or
whatever.  It'd be nice to have an "Edit-on-end" where you could prompt the user
to answer simple questions (like "Was this a good run?  [y/n]" or "Was the data
polarized?  [y/n]") and/or add a quick summary of what happened that run.


Thanks in advance,

Dan

Added ss_create_thread support for Linux in system.c
Added pthread library in main make file

The change is required to support implementation of pthreads in the Linux
compile of Midas. This was added recently. I believe pthreads is also needed
for ROOT based compiles.

David

> It appears that all midas applications are now required to link with the
> pthreads library even if they do not use threads. This is caused by a
> pthread_create() call from ss_thread_create() in system.c.
> 
> Is this the intended behaviour?
> 
> K.O.

ss_thread_create now returns the thread ID on success, and zero on failure.
Previously returned SS_SUCCESS or SS_NO_THREAD. User must now test the
return value to determine result.

ss_thread_kill added to kill the passed thread ID. Returns SS_SUCCESS or
SS_NO_THREAD.

Any thread creation must be verified now, and old code must be examined to
ensure the return value is checked.