Program: makeCalPad.app

Normally use the program like:

  ./makeCalPad.app -output=tpcDCSconfig.root /tmp/TPC-FEE_*

For more information on how to use the program try

  ./makeCalPad.app --usage     and/or     ./makeCalPad.app --help

The program is maintained by Christian.Lippmann@cern.ch
Comments, bug reports, suggestions welcome!

------

This program needs only root. The following classes have been extracted
from aliroot and should be kept in sync:

 * AliMathBase
 * AliTPCCalDet
 * AliTPCCalPad
 * AliTPCCalROC
 * AliTPCROC
 * TTreeStream

They can be copied my doing

  cd Rootify && make update

This will get the required files from AliRoot trunk and put them into a temporary
directory (Rootify/tmp). Recently (beginning 2009) there was a dependency on
AliExternalTrackParams introduced in AliMathBase. To not having to use too many
classes the function BetheBlochAleph should be commented out in AliMathBase.h and
AliMathBase.cxx.

------

Purpose:

The purpose is to make available the list of dead channels, the zero
suppression thresholds, the pedestal values (FPED) and the start- and
stop-of-acquisition times (time bins) to the OCDB (and thus offline).
The program is converting text files with certain configuration
information for the ALICE TPC into rootfiles containing AliTPCCalPad
objects. The text files are output by the TPCCommandCoderDB. The rootfiles
can be directly analysed by the offline code (aliroot). We use AlitTPCCalPad
objects.

The input are data files (ascii) with the following format:

- start --------------------
99
2       0       31      1       48      3       36      960
2       0       30      1       38      3       36      960
2       0       32      1       49      3       36      960
2       1       30      1       44      3       36      960
2       0       33      1       58      3       36      960
2       1       31      1       64      3       36      960
and so on ....
- stop ---------------------

Here the 99 marks the file type. Then there are a certain number
of lines with 8 columns:
 * column 1 is the roc number (in offline numbering [0..71]
 * column 2 is the pad row
 * column 3 is the pad
 * column 4 is the on_channel value (1 for on, 0 for off)
 * column 5 is the pedestal value with which the ALTRO is configured
 * column 6 is the zero supression threshold
 * column 7 is the start_of_acquisition time (TRCFG register in ALTRO)
 * column 8 is the stop_of_acquisition time (TRCFG register in ALTRO)

------

The output is a single rootfile (default name out.root).