SDDS-EPICS C/C++ ToolKit

Overview

SDDS-EPICS is a collection of EPICS Channel Access applications and utilities built on the Self-Describing Data Set (SDDS) protocol. It provides tools for data acquisition, monitoring, logging, and analysis in accelerator and beamline control systems.

Prerequisites

This repository relies on the following external projects:

• SDDS: https://github.com/rtsoliday/SDDS
• EPICS Base: https://github.com/epics-base/epics-base

Repository Structure:

📦 SDDS-EPICS Repository
├── AGENTS.md        # Agent instructions and guidelines
├── Makefile         # Top-level build configuration
├── Makefile.build   # Build helpers
├── Makefile.rules   # Common make rules
├── doc/             # Documentation sources
├── logDaemon/       # Distributed logging daemon and client library
├── oagca/           # CA and PVA generic tools (cavget, cavput, cawait)
├── rampload/        # Ramp-loading utilities
├── runcontrol/      # EPICS run control integration
├── SDDSepics/       # SDDS-based EPICS applications (snapshot, monitor, logger, etc.)
├── LICENSE          # Licensing information
└── README.md        # Project overview

Compilation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/rtsoliday/SDDS-EPICS.git
   cd SDDS-EPICS

2. Build using make:

   make -j

Notable Tools

• sddspcas: Portable Channel Access Server (PCAS) configured by SDDS input files. It creates and serves PVs defined by a ControlName column (with optional limits, units, element count, type, and equation support).
• sddsSoftIOC: Temporary EPICS Base softIoc wrapper compatible with the same SDDS input format as sddspcas. It generates an IOC .db at runtime, launches softIoc, and removes generated files on exit.

Detailed manual pages for both tools are included in the LaTeX documentation sources under doc/ (see doc/EPICStoolkit.tex).

License

This library is distributed under the Software License Agreement found in the LICENSE file.

Authors

• M. Borland
• L. Emery
• C. Saunders
• R. Soliday
• H. Shang

Acknowledgments

This project is developed and maintained by Accelerator Operations & Physics at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

For more details, visit the official SDDS documentation.