New version of DAQ code for AFTER/AGET electronics, it supports DCC, FEMINOS and ARC electronics, based on mclient program from Denis Calvet.

• Console based on readline, which include history of the commands.
• Using yaml format for config files
• Data is stored using ROOT, data is stored without using dictionaries for progam compatibility, metadata (configuration file, start and end time) is stored as TObjString.
• Maximum file size configurable from config file.
• Multithreading has been added for receiving commands and event builder.
• Exit handler, closing the program properly after pressing CTRL-C.
• Added a log file per FEM to check pedestal equalization and other command replies.
• Online file visualization using ROOT GUI.

• Readline (libreadline-dev)
• yaml-cpp (libyaml-cpp-dev)
• ROOT (version > 6.24) in C++17

To build the project, run the following commands from the repository:

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/your/custom/install/path
cmake --build build

Afterwards you have to source the code.

source /your/custom/install/path/thisFEMDAQ.sh

The programs uses CMake FetchContent module to download the required CL11 dependencies.

Similar to mclient commands, but it requires a YAML configuration file for initialization. To get a list of the available options, run the following command:

./femclient --help

The femclient program requires a configuration file for some DAQ parameters:

./femclient -c myConfigFile.yml

Standard usage is similar as the original mclient, commands are sent and received from the DAQ computer to the electronics using a command fetcher. However there are new femclient commands that has to be issued for standard operation:

• addMetadata update metadata information in the configuration file, this metadata is updated in the yaml file and stored in the root file.

• fopen to open ROOT and/or log files, two arguments are available root for only generate ROOT files and log to only generate log files (e.g. pedestals), if no arguments are added it generate both logs and ROOT files. Note that you have to issue addMetadata before fopen if you want to store data taking info in the ROOT file.

• fclose to close ROOT and/or log files.

• startDAQ starts acquisition loop, it replaces the acquisition loop in original mclient program, note that the maximum run time and number of events is now defined in the configuration file.

• stopDAQ stop event builder and clean-up after stopping the run.

• Pedestals only avalilable for DCC electronics to start a pedestal loop.

• verbose set verbose level, three options are available silent, info or debug, note that it overrides verbosity defined in the configuration file.

Note that some legacy commands form former mclient program are not supported (e.g. DAQ, credits restore,...), although this shouldn't be an issue, some error messages will be prompted.

Configuration file example is shown below:

run:
  rawDataPath: /my/data/storage/area/
  experiment: Test
  tag: DUMMY
  type: background
  verbose: info
  nEvents: 0
  time: 0s
  maxFileSize: 100Mb
  updateRate: 5s
  electronics: ARC
  FEM:
    - id: 0
      IP: 192.168.10.2
  Info:
    MeshV: 300
    DriftV: 500
    PressureB: 1.4

Note that the fields under the node Info are not required, other fields can be added under this node and they will be requested to be updated after issue addMetadata

A macro using ROOT GUI is provided for event visualization. To run the EventDisplay issue, the following command:

FEMDAQRoot -l -e "EventDisplay()"

Note that it uses FEMDaqRoot which starts a ROOT application with pre-loaded femdaq macros. A GUI will prompt: