ICALEPCS2011 - List of Authors (Sloan, M.C.)

Paper

Title

Page

CAFE, A Modern C++ Interface to the EPICS Channel Access Library

840

J.T.M. Chrin, M.C. Sloan
Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland

CAFE (Channel Access interFacE) is a C++ library that provides a modern, multifaceted interface to the EPICS-based control system. CAFE makes extensive use of templates and multi-index containers to enhance efficiency, flexibility and performance. Stability and robustness are accomplished by ensuring that connectivity to EPICS channels remains in a well defined state in every eventuality, and results of all synchronous and asynchronous operations are captured and reported with integrity. CAFE presents the user with a number of options for writing and retrieving data to and fro the control system. In addition to basic read and write operations, a further abstraction layer provides transparency to more intricate functionality involving logical sets of data; such object sequences are easily instantiated through an XML-based configuration mechanism. CAFE's suitability for use in a broad spectrum of applications is demonstrated. These range from high performance Qt GUI control widgets, to event processing agents that propagate data through OMG's Data Distribution Service (DDS), to script-like frameworks such as MATLAB. The methodology for the modular use of CAFE serves to improve maintainability by enforcing a logical boundary between the channel access components and the specifics of the application framework at hand.

Poster WEPKS024 [0.637 MB]

Paper	Title	Page
WEPKS024	CAFE, A Modern C++ Interface to the EPICS Channel Access Library	840
	J.T.M. Chrin, M.C. Sloan Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
	CAFE (Channel Access interFacE) is a C++ library that provides a modern, multifaceted interface to the EPICS-based control system. CAFE makes extensive use of templates and multi-index containers to enhance efficiency, flexibility and performance. Stability and robustness are accomplished by ensuring that connectivity to EPICS channels remains in a well defined state in every eventuality, and results of all synchronous and asynchronous operations are captured and reported with integrity. CAFE presents the user with a number of options for writing and retrieving data to and fro the control system. In addition to basic read and write operations, a further abstraction layer provides transparency to more intricate functionality involving logical sets of data; such object sequences are easily instantiated through an XML-based configuration mechanism. CAFE's suitability for use in a broad spectrum of applications is demonstrated. These range from high performance Qt GUI control widgets, to event processing agents that propagate data through OMG's Data Distribution Service (DDS), to script-like frameworks such as MATLAB. The methodology for the modular use of CAFE serves to improve maintainability by enforcing a logical boundary between the channel access components and the specifics of the application framework at hand.
	Poster WEPKS024 [0.637 MB]