Future Development Ideas

These are my notes for what I think we can/should add to V3 through an evolutionary process. The ordering is probably vaguely right, but not necessarily that accurate.

Tasks which could be done now

These items can be worked on immediately as they do not depend on any other work to have been completed, and could even be included in the next 3.14 release if appropriate.

Documentation (3.14/3.15)

Lots we can do here:

Record Reference Manual

• Add a chapter for the aSub record, derived from the genSub record chapter (which already exists).
• Delete the synApps record types from the R3.13 Wiki pages that don't belong there.
• Extend the DBD to HTML converter so we can move detailed record reference documentation into the record.dbd and/or record.c files.

Application Developers Guide

• Convert into an OpenDocument Text file (or some other non-proprietary format). Machine-translating index markers is the most important part of this conversion, we don't want to lose the index.
• Write a "Building and Porting EPICS" chapter
• Restructure the AppDevGuide to make it more accessible
  • Combine the libCom and libCom/osi chapters
  • Maybe have a separate section for all callable APIs
  • Could move all API documentation into the appropriate source files and use Doxygen or perldoc to extract.

Other Documents

• Look at all the documentation we have and see what's missing
• Data Access, other new CA-related documentation...

More test programs

There are test programs in libCom/test which cover quite a lot of the libCom functionality, but they are by far from complete. Writing test code is a very good way to learn the capabilities of the code being tested, and is not usually hard to to, so this would be a good "getting started" project.

Priority: Medium

IOC Test Framework in Perl

Once we have complete test coverage for libCom we should look at IOC-level testing, including tests for individual record types. This needs Perl code to start a soft IOC with a particular database file, make channel connections using the Perl CA library and perform the necessary tests, then close down the IOC and clean up. Tests should generate TAP output and run under the standard Perl Test::Harness, as used by the 'make runtests' target.

Once the framework exists, write test programs for each record type and device support layer. Look at the Soft-Test suite and implement those tests too.

Improve error reporting (3.14/3.15)

Look at the error reporting and messages generated by various parts of the code, in particular the parsers in src/as and src/dbtools to see if their output can be improved. The dbStatic parser was done recently so might be useful as a model, but might still be improvable.

Enhance the aSub record type (3.14/3.15)

Allow the types and dimensions of the aSub fields A-U and VALA-VALU to be changed at runtime. This is useful to allow replacing one subroutine at runtime with another that expects different field types, or just to be able to extend an array.

Priority: Low
Libs affected: rec.

Dynamic array sizes through links (3.14/3.15)

Links never update their array length after initialization. CA may support dynamic array sizes sometime, but we should also be able to implement it for DB links. This might need a link configuration flag though, to avoid breaking existing applications.

This first needs investigation into what happens now, work out exactly how we want it to behave, design a solution so that the existing behavior is retained and implement.

Priority: Low
Libs affected: dbStatic?, db, rec?, softDev?

Named Soft Events (3.14/3.15)

Add the ability to use an event name instead of a number in the EVNT field. EVNT is currently a short, but we only allow soft event numbers to be 8 bits, so this allows us space to add a new set of event numbers for named events. The event names should not have to be declared in advance, although that does leave the possibility of typos so maybe the IOC should be told first. Will probably need changes to the Event record type and/or device support.

Priority: Low
Libs affected: dbStatic, db, rec, softDev.

Timestamp on Value Change (3.14/3.15)

Be able to select whether a record's timestamp should indicate when a record last processed (current behavior), or when its value last changed. Since the timestamp gets set by the record's process() routine, this is best done by adding a menu field to each record type, making the recGblGetTimeStamp() call conditional on that field and add another call to it inside the monitor() routine.

Priority: Low
Libs affected: db, rec.

Attribute values for non-VAL fields

Currently most record types that have one return the EGU field contents in their get_units() routine for all fields, which is wrong for most. EGU should apply to VAL and OVAL, plus the alarm limit fields, HYST and ADEL/MDEL etc.

The calc, calcout and dfanout record types have bad code in get_precision(), for their non-VAL DBF_DOUBLE fields such as ODLY it doesn't set *pprecision at all. The recGblGetPrec() routine doesn't provide the same semantics as the other recGblGetXxx() routines which makes this confusing; maybe change that or add a new routine which does (for backwards compatibility with out-of-tree record types).

Libs affected: rec, db?

Database diagnostics

When an IOC is too busy to service CA, the engineers need a way to find out what records are causing the problem. Something like a dbSpy command might be helpful, which would keep a count of the records processing and give periodic reports. Would need to be designed carefully so it doesn't eat RAM or slow down the machine too much.

Other diagnostics could also be added: dbProcess rate, ...

Priority: Medium
Libs affected: db, dbStatic.

VDCT Enhancements

Any Java developers want to work on this?

Record aliases

EPICS Base R3.14.11 will support record aliases, which VDCT does not. Both preserving the aliases attached to a record loaded from a .db file, and providing creation and editing capabilities for them through the GUI.

DTYP and INP/OUT parsing

Can we fix the "DTYP must be set before INP/OUT" issue by saving the INP/OUT field string (don't we already do this?) and parsing it to the real structure at iocInit time? Without looking at the code it seems possible that we might be able to, but I haven't checked. We'd need a flag to indicate whether the structure or the string should be regarded as definitive, since it's possible the structure might get changed at run-time.

Packagable Build System

The EPICS Build system currently does not distinguish between programs that are needed by IOC developers (e.g. dbToMenuH) and end-user programs (e.g. caget). We could divide our build targets into these very easily, which would make packaging EPICS Base much more straight-forward. I see the following parts:

End-user Binaries

• catools
• Shared libraries
• SoftIoc (requires compiled-in DBD data though)

These could be installed into /usr/local from an RPM or equivalent packaging system.

Developer Tools

• flex, antelope binaries etc.
• static libraries
• DBD and header files
• Build system components

These could be packaged into a -devel RPM or equivalent.

Priority: R3.15
This is probably a task for Janet Anderson.

Extended Device Support (3.15)

Converting Asyn's device support layers to Extended support exposed the need to clean up the extended interface, i.e. reduce the code duplication which is currently required since the record knows nothing about the device change.

Libs affected: db, rec.

New Record Types

From Bob: Add record types - valve record, improved control records for PID and Lead/Lag (if we had a good process control guy to design the record).

Enhancements to PID should start from the most advanced implementation currently available, which is not the old PID record type from Base 3.13. There's a PID record in synApps, and there may be others available from other sites too.

Priority: Dalesio
Libs affected: (external app)

CA support for Array with Timebase

From Bob: Add a new dbr_type into the channel access database - new array that includes time base and offset at least. One that also supports up to 3 dimensions (or better n).

Priority: Dalesio
Libs affected: Many...

More flexible Access Security

The AS design defines each field's security level in the record description, and limits us to only levels 0 and 1. There are many cases where sites need finer control over access; being able to put individual fields of a specific record into a different level, and having additional static levels (use a bitmask?) would help in a number of situations. It is not clear how much work this would entail though.

Priority: Low
Libs affected: dbStatic, db, as, ...

Authentication

From Ralph: Two or three institutes need a way to password-protect access to certain databases. The usual encryption libraries are freely available, but I guess this issue needs a lot more thinking. Granularity: by record, by connection = IOC, or centralised? Should the authentication last for the client's lifetime or should a short form (some security token or key) be sent with every CA data package?

Secure CA

Secure channel access protocol - add SSL wrappers around CA to make it secure.

Ralph and Jeff implemented CA-over-TCP at the Codeathon in April 2008, which should form the basis of this work.

Priority: R3.15
Libs affected: ca, cas, rsrv

Online Record Creation

It might be possible to add new record instances at runtime, although delete would need a change to the record interface to support. The tricky thing is to do this in a manner which is completely thread-safe since the pdbbase structure does not have many locks, and adding them could significantly affect operation of the IOC.

Priority: Dalesio
Libs affected: dbStatic, db, misc

OFFLINE Alarm Status, Asyn support

• Add a new Alarm Status (not severity!) OFFLINE.
• Add the ability to the asyn port server to be set to OFFLINE (or use the existing "Connect" mechanism?).
• If the asyn port/address is OFFLINE, any records that make requests to it are set to INVALID:OFFLINE.
• Add any routines/tools necessary for easy administration of this (i.e. report all the OFFLINE ports/addresses).

Priority: Arnold
Libs affected: dbStatic, Asyn.

Tasks which are already under way

These tasks are already being worked on but may have stalled. They might be hard for someone else to take over at this stage.

3.15 Cleanup

3.15 already includes the Up change to the build system; the ramifications of this change have not been followed up completely though:

• Provide a perl script for converting 3.14 apps to 3.15
• Bring over latest templates from 3.14
• Implications for building extensions not worked out
• makeBaseExt.pl is probably no longer needed

Compiling DBD Files (3.15)

A Perl implementation of the DBD file parser exists and provides working dbdToRecordH and dbdToMenuH scripts. I'm working to revive my plans to convert all DBD file information into C tables that get compiled into the IOC executable or its shared libraries.

With this parser written in Perl, it is much easier to add new facilities to DBD files, such as adding new field types (see Variable Length Strings below).

Libs affected: dbStatic, +dbHost, db.

Things which can't be completed yet

These are tasks are waiting on other people or for other tasks to be completed before they can be finished, although there may be infrastructure to support them that can be worked on in parallel.

IOCSH Command Registration (3.15)

Add DBD file syntax to convert DBD file information into a C header file which declares the command functions (similar to how we do record types in the current code-base). This header would then be included by the C file that defines those functions, thus the C compiler would do the work of ensuring that the routine implemented actually matches the command that will call it.

The command information in the DBD file will also be useful for future versions of the IRMIS parser for st.cmd scripts, where we need to be able to tie the device support configuration commands into IRMIS' need to map hardware devices to record addresses.

Libs affected: dbHost, all libs Registrar code.

CA Event Rate Limiting (3.15)

A CA client can specify a maximum event rate for each channel subscription it creates.

Waiting for: JSON field modifiers

CA Event Filtering (3.15)

A CA client can specify an event filter with the channel subscription which must be true for events to be posted to the client.

Waiting for: JSON field modifiers

DBE_PROPERTY event generation (3.15)

Extend the DBD syntax to link all fields that contain property values with the fields that the property is supplied with, then have dbPut() post a DBE_PROPERTY monitor on those fields whenever the property value changes.

Libs affected: dbHost, dbStatic, db Waiting for: Perl DBD Processing

Link Support (3.15+)

See original proposal by ANJ, which needs to be modified to add notify interfaces.

Array Field Support (3.16++)

Make it easier to add array fields to record types without having to do as much coding in the record support. See Ben Franksen email and the work done by Nick Rees at the 2009 Codeathon.

Libs affected: dbHost, dbStatic, db, rec.

Unbundling (3.15/++)

Split Base into three or more independent modules. Each module would have its own version number, and the modules can therefore each have an independent existance, although there would obviously be specific dependencies associated with particular versions.

If we adopt this, we should bundle working subsets of modules together and release the complete bundle as a tarfile.

I see the unbundled modules as follows:

Core

Depends on: Nothing

These are the common parts used by everything:

• Build system
• libCom & OSI layer
  • Basic registry routines
  • IOC shell
• Antelope
• Flex
• makeApp tool

Channel Access Client

Depends on: Core

Jeff Hill's responsibility.

• CA-specific build rules (probably none)
• CA client library
• CA Tools
• CA application makeApp templates

Channel Access Server

Depends on: Core, IOC, CAC?

Jeff Hill's responsibility.

• CAS-specific build rules (probably none)
• GDD
• The CAS server tool
• RSRV (the old CA server code)
• CAS application makeApp templates

IOC

Depends on: Core, CAC, CAS

The rest is code that runs on the IOC.

• IOC-specific build rules
• Static and runtime database access
• Runtime database
• Standard record types
• Soft device support
• The registry (device, driver, record, function)
• IOC application makeApp templates

Variable Length Strings (3.15++)

3.15 already includes the BaseString C++ classes in libCom, and I intend to create a set of C wrapper routines for the base class operations (started, currently incomplete). This can form the basis of a new variable length string type for use in the database in addition to DBF_STRING.

Libs affected: dbHost, dbStatic, db, ...

Alternate DB File Formats (3.15++)

There are calls to replace the existing DB file format with an XML-based format. Currently the DB file parser is too highly integrated into the process of record creation to be able to add a second format, but it would be feasible to separate these two and hence allow an expat-based or similar parser to be written. This would probably require a close analysis and upgrade to the locking arrangements of the database. Alternative to XML would be JSON, for which a parser is already being included in libCom.

Libs affected: dbHost?, dbStatic.

New Record API

These requests all need a significant change to the record support API. They are also fairly closely related, so should be used as input into any new API that gets devised.

Asynchronous Gets (3.16++)

From Tim Mooney: It would be great if an input link could initiate processing, and get a value that is known to be the result of that processing, even if records to be processed are asynchronous. Currently, a record that needs completion-qualified data must know how to trigger the processing that generates that data.

From Ben Franksen: Implemented an asyncronous dbGetLinkCallback() routine. To do this properly though needs an upgrade to the record support API, but maybe could be shoe-horned into the the existing API by adding a dbGetLinkCallback() with a private callback pointer, and we'd require new record types to use this. What does this do to the device support interface though? Implications need study.

Andrew's Comment: This should be part of the implementation of linkSupport which I proposed in detail many years ago. The purpose of the "Compiling DBD Files" item above is to make extending the DBD file syntax easier to do in the future, which is a necessary part of that development.

Blocking Puts (3.16++)

From Tim Mooney: It would be nice to have a link attribute that could put, request processing, and wait for completion. We have this capability now, in dbCaPutCallback(), but it's selectable only at DCT time.

The idea is for a version of the SEQ record where rather than a fixed delay, the second link would wait for the completion callback from the first link. This should be possible today with a special record type, but Tim suggests it should be possible with any link field of any record type.

Andrew's Comment: This should be part of the implementation of linkSupport which I proposed in detail many years ago. The purpose of the "Compiling DBD Files" item above is to make extending the DBD file syntax easier to do in the future, which is a necessary part of that development.

Multiple Master problem (3.16++)

From Jeff: Changes to output values in a PLC or similar device initiated outside of the output record. This could be resolved adding a new routine to the RSET that the device support calls back when it has a new raw ouptut value to back-propagate to the VAL field. Currently done by some devices that set PACT and call the record's process() routine to use its second-half processing only.

Records Can't Block (3.16++)

From Tim Mooney: I think almost half the code in the sscan record is devoted to bookmarking. In the middle of some algorithm, the record needs to wait for external events; the only way back in is process(), and so the record has to have a complicated arrangement of switches that get it back into the algorithm it was executing, with enough state information to decide what to do next. At the same time, the record must check to see if it's now processing because of some out-of-band request from the user. Normal and exceptional processing must, therefore, be mixed together in the switch arrangement, and adding new behaviors to the record becomes a very hairy undertaking.

But what the record would really like to do is just wait with its context intact for events, and allow special() to release it from the wait if the user has requested something that requires this. I guess this means the record should include author-defined event types in the wait mask, and special() should be able to generate author-defined events.

Dynamically Loaded Modules (3.16++)

After converting the DBD load process into table registration, it should become easier to allow support modules (containing record types, device support and other drivers) to be discovered and loaded dynamically. Unloading is a very different matter though, we don't have the shutdown facilities to allow that.

Atomic Operations through CA (3.16++)

This is related to the Asynch Gets issue above; implement Read-Write (Swap, permits semaphores), Process-Read and Write-Process-Read (Command/Response) as atomic operations available through Channel Access.