SPEAR EPICS Record Naming Convention

last update: 09 Dec 2002

This page describes the SPEAR EPICS database record naming convention for all records except those for the RF system which uses the PEPII naming convention.
Record names have two parts:

Record Name = COMPONENT:Signal

Detail about each part is provided below. Record names will be no longer than 28 characters. Record field names (ie, .VAL, .HIGH) are defined in the Record Reference Manual and cannot be changed by the application developer.

Example record names:

COMPONENT


COMPONENT represents as closely as possible a hardware component as described in the SPEAR3 configuration database ( Mechanical, Electrical, Controls). All non-numeric characters in COMPONENT are uppercase and dashes "-"'s are used for separation. If a COMPONENT is not in the configuration database because it is geographically distributed (like a magnet string), a calculated quantity (like the ring energy), or physically not in the ring (like a VME crate), then a sensible COMPONENT name will be assigned and added to the configuration database.

Signal

Signal represents a "quantity" or measured attribute of the COMPONENT. Upper and lower case characters are used in signal names for readability. Special characters (ie, "_", "-", ":") are not used (or are at least discouraged). Sometimes two or three parts are combined in Signal. The first part indicates a sub-component (ie, Fan, Mgnt), if applicable. The second part indicates the quantity (ie, Temp, Curr) if analog, or state (ie, Reset, State) if digital. The third part provides a specific attribute (ie, Setpt), if applicable. Usually each part is 6 characters or less. Recommended names include:

Quantities:

Attribute: