Duplicating IOCs

IOC Duplication script

There is a script in ibex utils to duplicate IOCs, more information can be found here.

The manual instructions below can also be used.

Manual instructions
## Creating IOC 2 If you need more than 1 IOC (i.e. you are making the second IOC) there is only a process to follow, rather than a script, as various IOCs can have their own nuances: so take this with a grain of salt. Let us refer to the IOC you are duplicating as `newIOC`, for clarity.

Navigate to an IOC folder which has two or more IOCs: here we have two folders to focus on, <ioc>/iocBoot/ and <ioc>/<ioc>-IOC-0<n>App (where n is the number of IOCs). Make sure this IOC has a st-common.cmd file (to make your life easier!). Let us refer to this as refIOC.

Now, let’s get cracking!

Making IOC 2: iocBoot/ioc<newIOC>-IOC-02>

  1. Create a new ioc<newIOC>-IOC-02 folder in /iocBoot/.

  2. Navigate to the config.xml file of refIOC. In 01 you will see macros being defined, in 02 you will see the 01 config file being referenced. Create a config.xml file in ioc<newIOC>-IOC-02 and do the same.

  3. Check that there is a st-common.cmd file in ioc<newIOC>-IOC-01

    • if there is, note how st.cmd references this. Copy this file into ioc<newIOC>-IOC-02 and refactor all instances of 01 to 02. Then, where the file calls st-common.cmd, you will need to add a line that navigates to the ioc<newIOC>-IOC-01 directory above it (there will be an example of this in ioc<refIOC>-IOC-02).

    • if there is not, note how the st.cmd and st-common.cmd are set up in refIOC. In ioc<newIOC>-IOC-01, transition the st.cmd contents to a st-common.cmd file and refactor the st.cmd to reference this in a similar way. Now follow the step above!

  4. Copy across the Makefile - this stays unchanged.

  5. Copy across envPaths, changing ioc<newIOC>-IOC-01 to ioc<newIOC>-IOC-02 if it appears.

  6. Copy across dllPath<...> and relPaths files. These also stay unchanged.

Making IOC 2: <newIOC>-IOC-02App

This one may be slightly less straightforward. There may be nuances and additional things in this folder to deal with that aren’t mentioned below - either try find another IOC with similar oddities or ask someone!

  1. Create a new <newIOC>-IOC-02App folder in /<newIOC>/

  2. Navigate to <newIOC>-IOC-01App and copy across Db to the 02App folder.

    • Empty the O. folders of all .db files.

    • Delete all .substitutions files from top level.

    • In Db\O.windows-x64\Makefile, refactor the line DB += something.db ... with #DB += xxx.db (e.g just comment it out)

  3. Navigate to <newIOC>-IOC-01App and copy across src to the 02App folder.

    • Empty the contents of both O. folders.

    • Delete the build.mak file

    • Rename the <...>Main.cpp file with the correct IOC number, and rename the header in the file itself.

    • In the Makefile, update APPNAME with the correct IOC number - but the include ... line needs to stay the same.

  4. Check whether <newIOC>-IOC-01App has a protocol file

    • If it does, just copy this across. As far as I can see, the Makefiles and folder contents seem to be the same.

After duplication

After either using the script or creating duplicates manually be sure to make and test to IOC.

Making the IOC

  1. make the <newIOC> folder

  2. make iocstartups in EPICS top

  3. Try to run your new IOC!

Testing the IOC

Navigate to IOCTestframework or the ioc/<newIOC> folder (wherever the IOC tests live). Refactor DEVICE_PREFIX to <newIOC>_02 and you will need to refactor any calls to get_default_ioc_dir() with additional parameter iocnum (or whatever the equivalent is in your test module, this should be pretty intuitive).

WARNING: If you will also be making more IOCs via the method below, you should be very confident that your new <newIOC>_02 behaves the same as <newIOC>_01 before duplicating: any issues with <newIOC_02 will be propagated in every other new IOC you make as well.