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The Acqu Ecosystem

This repository is the common code basis of acqu users within the A2 collaboration. It will (at least) cover the calibration and a simple physics analysis.

However, this master branch is still under heavy development and many changes could break your workflow or personal code. But this will improve!

So be warned, but don't hesitate to fork this repo here and contribute your personal changes if there useful by providing pull requests.

NOTE: As of November 2014, the acqu_user folder provides config files for different beamtimes. Use symlinks to select one. However, they might not be perfect or instantly working on your system.

Prerequisites

  • CERN ROOT > 5.30 with MySQL support (enabled by default, if you have mysql development files installed)
  • CMake > 2.6 (most Linux distributions provide packages)
  • Zlib and Ncurses development packages (see also troubleshooting)
  • git
  • Doxygen for documentation support (nicely integrated into QtCreator)

You probably want to create a GitHub account and fork from this repository. Then clone this personal "acqu" distribution (it is still very easy to get updates later).

If you have a working ROOT installation you can use these commands to get ready to build acqu:

Ubuntu 10.04.4: sudo apt-get install git-core cmake zlib1g-dev doxygen libncurses-dev

For the optional DirectIO mode (useful if running on a farm), install also the liblzma-dev package. Ensure to rebuild your ROOT installation such that the ROOT-internal statically compiled $ROOTSYS/lib/liblzma.a does not exist anymore. Enable DirectIO mode by inserting the line UseDirectIO: into your top-config file.

For the optional a2display support, clone and build the a2display repository at ../a2display relative to the acqu directory.

Installation

With CMake, it is required to build "outside" of the source directory (e.g. in an empty subfolder). Thus, we create an extra build sub-directory including all Makefiles (execute in "acqu" basedir containing acqu_core, acqu_user, ...):

mkdir build && cd build && cmake ..

Note that the two dots in the end really mean the parent directory (where the central CMakeLists.txt is located). Furthermore, it defaults to Debug mode and tells you exactly where the to-be-built libraries and binaries are located. You might want to add the binary path to your PATH environment (but if you use QtCreator, not even that is required).

Then start the parallel compilation for example on a QuadCore machine as

make -j5

You can also create some documentation with

make doc

If you already opened QtCreator before, it should tell you that it registered automatically the generated help file.

If you want to build only the DAQ part (no analysis), change the above cmake call to

mkdir build && cd build && cmake -DACQU_DAQ=On ..

which also automatically detects and includes EPICS, if available.

Usage with QtCreator

With the new CMake system, it is very easy to use QtCreator as an Integrated Development Environment. Just ensure that your version is recent enough (something like 2.5). Then do the following to set it up in QtCreator:

  1. Import the acqu project as a CMake project by opening the CMakeLists.txt in the basedir. A wizard dialog should pop up.

  2. You should get asked for a build directory. Create a new subdir build and choose that. You can also choose an already existing one.

  3. Run cmake from the GUI as required from the wizard but turn Debug mode on by providing -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug as an option to cmake. Check if it found the correct ROOT installation. If it did not find the correct one, either remove your ROOTSYS environment variable or add one by starting QtCreator from the console like this: ROOTSYS=/path/to/root qtcreator &.

  4. Then set the working directory in "Project (left panel) --> Run Settings" to your acqu_user directory and provide the correct *.dat file to AcquRoot as an argument. At this point, you can also set -j5 as an argument to make in the build settings tab.

  5. Hit F5 and you should be able to build, run and debug AcquRoot. That means you can set breakpoints, have sophisticated code completion and a Doxygen-driven help system. You can still use in parallel the command line, if you find that more useful in some cases.

Short Git Tutorial

The following hints are certainly incomplete (and there are much better tutorials out there), but it should guide you how to track your own changes and easily fetch updates from other repositories. For a good overview who is working on what, have a look at the network.

Track your changes with git:

  • First of all, you should create a GitHub account and fork from the A2-Collaboration's repository. Then clone this forked version to some local folder, say git clone https://github.com/myusername/acqu.git.
  • Then, after you changed something of the code or config files, review the state with git status. Please take care of untracked files and do not add binary or other "generated" files to the index. A good idea is to add them selectively to the index by git add acqu_user/root/src/MyCoolAnalyis.cpp.
  • Now, if you're happy with the to-be-committed changes, commit them using git commit. It asks you for a commit message and some commented out lines telling you again what you're about to commit. Please use this message as an opportunity to describe your work. If in doubt, create more smaller commits than a single big one.
  • You should publish your work, this can also serve as a nice backup.

Updating or fetching work from others:

  • It's best to add the remote permanently to your own local repository: git remote add A2-Collaboration https://github.com/A2-Collaboration/acqu.git
  • Get the cool new stuff from that repository: git fetch A2-Collaboration. You should see the branches, have a look at them by using gitk --all.
  • Now, it is highly recommended to rebase (instead of using merge) your work on top of the other: git rebase A2-Collaboration/master. This might produce conflicts, which you need to resolve. There are many tools out there to handle this, but whatever you do: Read carefully the instructions and do not commit merge markers like <<<<<<<<. Also check if it still works before committing the resolved conflict. You can always abort the rebase by git rebase --abort.
  • Most likely after a successful rebase, you need to git push --force your branch (a normal push will reject your update). Do not follow the recommendation of git push to git pull since this creates a merge (this complicates the commit tree unnecessarily).

Migration and Troubleshooting

  • If the detection of some libraries still fails despite installing the necessary *-dev packages from your distribution, delete CMakeCache.txt in your build directory and run cmake again. In general, cmake caches already found packages and also settings, so don't be confused by this "feature".
  • Note that with CMake no environment variables are really needed anymore. This is why all setup files have been deleted. However, you might want to add the binary directory to your PATH environment.
  • Since the .gitignore's have changed, you can get rid of old build files by git clean -fdn, which lists all files, and if that is okay, delete them with git clean -fd.
  • If the compilation fails, check if you have some previous ROOT Dictionary source files. You can find them by find | grep Dict (in basedir) and if that lists only unneeded files delete them by find | grep Dict | xargs rm. Also git should report some of them as untracked (see above item how to get rid of them).
  • If you're changing header files and compiling breaks, a make clean could help since not all dependencies are correctly identified at the moment (but most should be!).
  • If the help in QtCreator does not work (i.e. F1 does not show you something when the pointer in the editor is located at some acqu class), then try registering manually the help file "build/doc/qthelp.qch" via "Tools --> Options... --> Help". Restart QtCreator.