Configuration Alias Trees

Alias trees are used as templates for the creation of numeric configuration trees. Their primamry purpose is to give meaningful names to configuration objects and trees and simplify management of the configuration databases.

The structure of the alias trees repeats the structure of the numeric trees with some important distinctions. Alias trees do not contain any user-defined configurations at all, instead their objects are just named links to the ordinary numeric objects. For example, one can define alias "PHYSICS" (or "DATA_TAKING", or whatever) in the container l3d/L3DConfigP:Default and make it a reference to numeric object with the key 25. This type of the alias objects is called leaf aliases (for obvious reasons). The intermediate nodes of the trees are called alias folders (we already have alias maps which are different things). Alias folders are very similar to the numeric maps, they also provide named links to other folders or leafs. Every alias folder also has its alias name, just like alias leaf. This structure allows to build the whole configuration tree using only names.

Like the numeric trees, alias trees are created on sysbsystem-level, and there is a special "top" subsystem which links all susbsystem in one bigger structure. Unlike the numeric trees, the run types (alias maps) live in the top subsystem instead of the subsystem databases (this simplifies locking issues).

Currently there is only command-line tool which serves as a user interface to the alias trees database (and numeric trees too). You can find its detailed description here.