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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Programming SICS Macros</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H2>Programming SICS Macros</H2>
<P>
The SICS server has a built in macro language. This macro language is basically
John Ousterhout's Tool Command Language Tcl. Tcl is described elsewhere.
A sound knowledge of Tcl is required for programming SICS macros. The SICS macro
language can be used for the following purposes:
<UL>
<li>Add hoc measurement procedures.
<LI>Trial measurement procedures.
<LI>Syntax adaptions to one's own favourite syntax.
<LI>Building of cmore complex commands from the SICS primitives.
</ul>
The general procedure for defining a macro requires defining the macro in a new
file, source this file from the configuration script and the use of the Publish
command to make it available. New commands can best be defined as Tcl procedures,
but the obTcl object oriented extension to Tcl is known to work as well. The SICS
macro language allows to access:
<ul>
<li>Most Tcl commands.
<li>All SICS commands.
</ul>
In the following sections a few pecularities of the SICS macro system will be
discussed.
</P>
<h3>Input/Output</h3>
<p>
It would be quite verbose and confusing for the user if all output from SICS
commands called from a macro would appear on the screen during macro execution.
Therefore all
normal SICS output to a client is suppressed while executing a macro. Except
error messages and warnings which will always be written to the
client executing the macro. The output of a SICS command is available within the
macro script through the normal Tcl mechanism as a return value. This allows for
processing of SICS output within a macro. If the output to the client executing
the macro is required this can be done with the ClientPut command, detailed in the
user documantation.
</p>
<h3>Error Handling</h3>
<p>
Tcl has the feature that it aborts execution of a script when an error occurs.
If a macro script needs to handle errors either from Tcl or from SICS commands
this can be achieved by using the Tcl catch mechanism. A script can inquire the current interrupt value of the
connection with the command <b>GetInt</b>. If a script can handle an error condition
it may set the interrupt on the connection object with the <b>SetInt</b> command.
The textual representations of interrupts for these commands are:
continue, abortop, abortscan, abortbatch, halt, free, end.
</p>
<h3>Interacting with SICS within a Script</h3>
<p>
There exist a few commands which allow to inquire or manipulate SICS
internals. Most of these commands are only available in macro scripts.
<DL>
<DT>SICSType thing.
<DD> SICSType lets SICS find out if thing has some meaning within SICS. Possible return
values are: DRIV for a drivable variable, COM for a SICS command, NUM for a numeric
value and TEXT for anything else.
<DT>SICSBounds var newval
<DD>SICSBounds checks if newval violates the hardware or software limits of
the variable var.
<DT>SetStatus newval
<DD>SetStatus sets the SICS status line to a new value. Possible values for
newval are: Eager, UserWait, Count, NoBeam, Paused, Driving, Running,
Scanning, Batch, Halt, Dead.
<DT>SICSStatus var
<DD>SICSStatus returns a integer value representing the current status of
the object var. var must be a drivable or countable object. The integer code returned
are defined in the SICS programmers documentation.
</DL>
</p>
<p>
Currently it is not possible to define object interfaces from within the SICS
macro language. For the notion of object interfaces see the
SICS programmers documentation. This may be implemented in future when needed.
</p>
</BODY>
</HTML>