Building pythonSoftIoc

To build pythonSoftIoc follow these steps:

1. Edit the following files:

   configure/RELEASE

   Set EPICS_BASE to point to your local installation of EPICS.

   configure/CONFIG_SITE

   Set PYTHON to the executable name of your Python interpreter.

2. Build pythonIoc without documentation by running:

   make BUILD_DOCS=
   

   At this point you should be able to run ./pythonIoc which will give you an interative Python interpreter.

3. Now ensure that you have numpy, cothread, and epicsdbbuilder installed. These can be installed unversioned, or versioned (in which case pkg_resources.require will need to be used), or just localling built and added to your PYTHONPATH.

4. Now check that pythonIoc works by running example/runtest. You may need to edit example/version.py if you're using a versioned install of cothread and epicsdbbuilder.

5. Finally build the documentation by running:

   make docs
   

   Again, if your installation of components is versioned you may need to edit docs/conf.py as appropriate.

Using pythonSoftIoc

Probably the best way to use pythonSoftIoc is to start by copying fragments of a simple example such as CS-DI-IOC-02. This consists of the following elements:

1. A startup shell script start-ioc which launches the soft IOC using a production build of pythonSoftIoc. This script typically looks like this:

   #!/bin/sh
   
   PYIOC=/path/to/pythonSoftIoc/pythonIoc
   
   cd "$(dirname "$0")"
   exec $PYIOC start_ioc.py "$@"
   

2. The startup Python script. This establishes the essential component versions (apart from the pythonSoftIoc version), performs the appropriate initialisation and starts the IOC running. The following template is a useful starting point:

   from pkg_resources import require
   require('cothread==2.12')
   require('epicsdbbuilder==1.0')
   
   # Import the basic framework components.
   from softioc import softioc, builder
   import cothread
   
   # Import any modules required to run the IOC
   import ...
   
   # Boilerplate get the IOC started
   builder.LoadDatabase()
   softioc.iocInit()
   
   # Start processes required to be run after iocInit
   ...
   
   # Finally leave the IOC running with an interactive shell.
   softioc.interactive_ioc(globals())
   

   Note that the use of require is specific to DLS, and you may have a different way of managing your installations.