STAF - Analysis Service Packages

  The Analysis Service Packages provide system like service functionality to the STAF user. They are written in C++ and include the following:

• AMI - Analysis Module Interface to STAF; calls PAMs at run time.
• ASU - Analysis Service Utility - messages and memory allocation statistics.
• DIO - Data Input/Output - Read/Write event streams from/to external files; also I/O for files containing run specific parameters. In STAF DIO writes out entire datasets, not individual tables; the external files are in xdf format. For data input, DIO reads external xdf files into STAF datasets. In STAF, a dataset is like a UNIX directory, and a table is like a UNIX file. Datasets may contain other datasets as well as tables.
• DUI - Dataset Unix like Interface; Unix-like commands for dataset creation and navigation at run time. i.e.,

  
  

            cd, ls, mkdir, pwd
  
  
  

  Data structure tables (analogous to UNIX files) are stored in datasets (analogous to UNIX directories) in a hierarchical Unix-like tree structure at run time in STAF.

• LEV - Log Environment and Version
• SOC - Service and Object Catalog - STAF object manager
• SPX - Service Package eXample
• TBR - Table BRowser - initiates GUI for browsing variables and numerical values in tables.
• TDM - Table and Dataset Manager - create datasets and tables; handles the ``get'' and ``set'' functionality for the maximum number of rows and number of rows used in tables as well as the specific numerical values of the table variables. The table idl file (remember there are two types of idl files) determines the table type. TDM may be used to create new table types at run time and is also used to create instances of table types at run time as illustrated in the following tutorials. We will refer to specific instances of table types simply as tables. You must create the tables before passing them to your modules. STAF tables are described in the following section.
• TNT - Tables to NTuples - fills column-wise PAW ntuples from STAF tables.
• TOP - Table OPerators - operate on tables; e.g. cut, project and join.

ASPs are invoked in STAF by way of calls which have the general syntax:

     /ASPname/Adjectives.../action [name of object acted on] [parameters]

Example STAF commands will be given in the following tutorials.