online_distribution

Software to read and analyze RCDAQ data files:

• eventlibraries - the Event/Packet libraries that read RCDAQ data and decode the packets, plus the command-line tools ddump, dlist, dpipe and others
• pmonitor - the ROOT-based analysis and monitoring framework built on them (see the RCDAQ home page for the manuals and example files)

• a C++20 compiler (gcc or clang)
• ROOT, built with C++20
• zlib, bzip2 and LZO (liblzo2) with their development headers

git clone https://github.com/eic/online_distribution.git

This is the ePIC fork of online_distribution. It started out as a branch of the sPHENIX version, sPHENIX-Collaboration/online_distribution, and keeps its full history. From now on the two are developed separately and are not merged: they support different devices.

Everything is installed under one prefix. For a private install area, the convention is to keep that prefix in $ONLINE_MAIN:

export ONLINE_MAIN=/path/to/install

The build itself does not need ONLINE_MAIN; it only uses the prefix you give it, so a system-wide install works the same way with /usr/local as the prefix.

The headers go to <prefix>/include/Event/ and <prefix>/include/pmonitor/, the libraries to <prefix>/lib, the programs to <prefix>/bin.

You have the choice of using automake or cmake for the installation. All of them install the same files.

From the top-level directory:

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$ONLINE_MAIN
cmake --build build -j8
cmake --install build

The eventlibraries first, then pmonitor, which finds them through CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:

cmake -S eventlibraries -B build-eventlibraries -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$ONLINE_MAIN
cmake --build build-eventlibraries -j8
cmake --install build-eventlibraries

cmake -S pmonitor -B build-pmonitor -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$ONLINE_MAIN -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$ONLINE_MAIN
cmake --build build-pmonitor -j8
cmake --install build-pmonitor

As in the RCDAQ manual (rcdaq_doc.pdf, "Installation"): the sources and a separate build tree next to each other, e.g. in $HOME/softwarerepo, and autogen.sh run from the build directory (it passes its arguments on to configure). The eventlibraries first, then pmonitor, into the same prefix:

cd $HOME/softwarerepo
mkdir -p build/online_distribution/{eventlibraries,pmonitor}

cd build/online_distribution/eventlibraries
../../../online_distribution/eventlibraries/autogen.sh --prefix=$ONLINE_MAIN
make install

cd ../pmonitor
../../../online_distribution/pmonitor/autogen.sh --prefix=$ONLINE_MAIN
make install

CMake builds default to -O2 -g (RelWithDebInfo), the same as Automake.

For a private install area:

export PATH=$ONLINE_MAIN/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ONLINE_MAIN/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export ROOT_INCLUDE_PATH=$ONLINE_MAIN/include:$ONLINE_MAIN/include/Event:$ONLINE_MAIN/include/pmonitor

For an install in /usr/local, the compiler and linker find the headers and libraries by themselves. Run ldconfig (as root) once after installing, so the programs find the libraries without LD_LIBRARY_PATH (Debian and Ubuntu search /usr/local/lib; other distributions may need an entry in /etc/ld.so.conf.d). ROOT still needs to be told where the headers are:

export ROOT_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/local/include/Event:/usr/local/include/pmonitor

Code includes the headers with their directory, e.g. #include <Event/Event.h> and #include <pmonitor/pmonitor.h>. writePmonProject.sh <name> creates a new pmonitor project.

For the UDP-based ROC formats (302, 310), whose waveforms are split across Packets, eventlibraries has pool classes that put them back together; see eventlibraries/ROC_pool.md.

• The decoders for the PHENIX and sPHENIX detectors (GL1, LL1, the digitizers, MVTX, INTT, TPC and others) are gone.
• The legacy PHENIX data format (PRDF) can no longer be read or written; a PRDF file gives a message that the format is not supported. RCDAQ writes the RCDAQ format by default.
• The event and packet classes have proper names: Event_A (was oncsEvent), Packet_A (was oncsSubevent), and Packet_idXXX for the packet formats (was oncsSub_idXXX). Code that uses Event, Packet and the iterators, as user code normally does, is not affected, and programs built against the earlier version run without a rebuild.
• dpipe always writes the RCDAQ format; its options -o, -z and -l are gone for now (compressed writing will come back). prdf2prdf is gone, and changeid and changehitformat are not built until they are rewritten for the RCDAQ format.
• New: the 64-bit format ID8EVT, the V1742 calibration packet and the correction class caen_calibration, and the pool classes for the formats 302 and 310.