Status

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I presently left Laurence Berkeley National Laboratory, where I started working on this project.

If -- or course -- I will be happy helping you installing this program on your computer I can not guaranty  that I will have time and resources to update or modify it.

Please be also aware of the fact that I am presently not leaving in USA and it can take some time (jet lag !) before I answer your email (to be preferentially sent to gibelinunicaen.fr).

However, this project is very general: it answers the question "How can I read this raw data in a humanly readable way". There is thus a big chance that I will get back to this code sometime in the future for a different project. I will of course post any change on this page.

Download

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You can download the latest version here:

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9982.tgz (Saturday Jan 24th 2009)

Older versions (beware: they might be buggy):

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9981.tgz (Wednesday May 29th 2008)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.998.tgz (Wednesday May 29th 2008)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9971.tgz (Wednesday May 28th 2008)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.997.tgz (Wednesday Sep 26th 2007)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9961.tgz (Thursday Sep 20th 2007)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9951.tgz (Tuesday July 31st 2007)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9931.tgz (Wednesday June 13th 2007) 

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.993.tgz (Wednesday June 6th 2007)  

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.992.tgz (Thursday May 24th 2007)  

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.9911.tgz (Monday May 22th 2007)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.991.tgz (Wednesday April 25th 2007) 

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.99.tgz (Friday April 17th 2007)

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.982.tgz (Friday March 23rd 2007) 

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.981.tgz (Thursday March 14th 2007) 

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.98.tgz

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.97.tgz

*kmax2ntpl.ver0.96.tgz

Installation

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Download the latest version above.

Unpack the archive somewhere in an appropriate directory:

tar zxvf kmax2ntpl.verX.XX.tgz

Compile the source:

make

If you want to install the executable in the path (need root password) as well as the manual:

make install

If you want to read the manual installed in the current directory:

make man

This program as been tested with Fedora Core 5, 6, iBook and PowerPC and gcc 3.4.3 and higher.

The makefile should handle the Mac/PC portability. May not work with linux kernel 2.4 and older.

You must modify your makefile to compile and links with CERNLIB (ROOT is done automatically if ROOT is installed, see bellow).

CERNLIB and PAW : 

Technically speaking you don't need either root or cernlib to compile kmax2ntpl.

However, this program has been written essentially has an interface between raw data and CERN libraries (root or paw).

I thus strongly suggest you install ROOT, from the sources (see root.cern.ch) following the procedure described in

root.cern.ch/root/Install.html). I also suggest, if you have super-user privileges, to follow the "fixed location" procedure.

This will grandly simplify your (and other users) access to ROOT and the kmax2ntpl's Makefile will normally work by itself.

Note that I systematically installed ROOT and thus the list of OS/Computer where kmax2ntpl works also apply to ROOT.

Man page

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NAME

KMAX2NTPL - Convert Kmax event files to other formats.

SYNOPSIS

kmax2ntpl [options] input_struc_file input_event_file(s) directory|output_ntuple_file

DESCRIPTION

 Convert KMAX event files to other formats.  Needs as input a file describing the data structure and the relation between observable and electronic modules (input_struc_file, see below for details).

 It needs KMAX data file(s) as input (input_event_file). You can specified as many files as you want, kmax2ntpl will process them in the order you gave them to it. From august 2007 you can also read data files that have been compress by removing the 16bits zeros or by gzip. Note that reading gziped file is (about twice) slower.

 By default the program output to a CERN, ROOT TTree formatted file, named from the body of the first input_event_file with a *.root as extension. You can change the output format with the options described below and the name of the output by specifying a output_ntuple_file. Note that an output directory or output file name are now mandatory (due to the possibility of reading more that one data file).

OPTIONS

-help:

shows the help

-v:

verbose

-list:

lists all electronic modules defined in the code and some help

-2bytes:

input data file is 2 byte size (compressed) this flag is automatically set if the data file extension is *.cevnt instead of *.evnt

-ascii:

output in ASCII file, with as default a *.txt extension.

-screen:

output on screen

-csv:

output in Comma Separated Value file format, with as default a *.csv extension.

-zeros:

output data w/o zero suppress (-ascii or -screen flag only)

-root:

output in root tree file format, with as default a *.root extension.

-ntpl:

output in PAW ntuple file format.

-scaler=s:

scaler output status:

if s=yes  sort and output the scaler data (default)
 if s=only sort and output the scaler data only
 if s=no   do not sort or output the scaler data

-map:

create an additional histogram that maps extended channel.

 Warning: can substantially slow down the program

-cal=file:

 use the parameters in file to calibrate the data

-calonly, -noraw:

do not convert raw data. Calibrated only. Option to save hard drive space.

-%=char:

 replace the default '%' file separator by 'char'

 useful when you renamed your data files to be readable by another program (for example TSCAN) and want to read them back with kmax2ntpl. 

-events=n:

limit the number of read events to n.

If n is an integer: read from 0 to n. 
 Otherwise, if n is a range n0-n1 read from event n0 to event n1.
 Thus -events=0-100 is equivalent to -events=100.

Warning: no space after and before the `=' sign.

-debug:

equivalent of -screen -zeros -v

-log:

 redirect all errors (even the most improbable ones) and append infos to kmax2ntpl.log.

 This file has to be manually removed.

-allerror:

print all encountered errors at the end.

-f --force:

do not prompt before overwriting.

-listerr:

list all defined error flags. Since an array of error is automatically generated and saved with the nutple (TTree only for now) this flag helps to assign which array is which error.

-test:

intermediate debugging

-xinput:

test the input file. Output result and exit.

DATA STRUCTURE FILE

The data structure file should be organized in four columns

Column 1:

observable label, limited to 128 different ones

Column 2:

observable index

Column 3:

electronic device name. Case insensitive. Use option --list to obtain all defined modules.

Column 4:

If Column 5 is 0 or something else than an integer then Column 4 corresponds to the cumulative channel. Typically VSN*..+... Otherwise Column 4 is the VSN number. Starts from 1.

Column 5 (optional):

Channel number (starts from 1) for the corresponding module of VSN given in Column 4. Then the programs calculate automatically the cumulative channel number.

Warning: if this column is not a integer greater than 0 then the program takes the number in Column 4 as the cumulative channel number.

Warning: maximum line length: 256 characters

Use comma, space or pipe | to separate columns. You can check that the file is properly read by using the verbose -v flag or better the -xinput.

A Comment line

can be added by starting the line with a double slash //. Everything added to a properly defined normal line will be ignored, hence you can use this space as comment. No need to use // although it is recommended.

Scaler Data

are treated differently by the sorting routine (different format, ntuple, ...) but for simplicity its declaration is identical to a normal electronic module. No array is allowed thus column 2, mandatory, is however meaningless.

Dead channel

For safety and modularity you have to declared all the observable of an array. However, its corresponding electronic channel might be dead, unplugged, etc. You can declared a dead channel by putting a least one start * in column 3 followed by any number in column 4.

Example

Time: 18:58:25 GMT, September 26, 2007