LAST MODIFIED: 20-Jan-1999

APPROVED: 22-Oct-1998

Job Options Service (JobOptionsSvc)

Purpose and functionality

The purpose of the job options service is to supply the options for the current job to other components of the architecture. It is assumed that facilities allowing the user to edit the options and to save or retrieve sets of them for future use are supplied outside this service.

The options may consist of:

• Flags that select the algorithms to be run in the current job.
• Values that override default properties of the algorithms
• Definition of the input data set
• Selection criteria for the input data
• Definition of output data streams (e.g. for event data, histogram data etc.)
• Definition of error reporting streams
• Etc.

Interfaces

• IService interface

  JobOptionsSvc inherits from Service, which implements the IService interface. JobOptionsSvc reimplements the following method:

  • StatusCode initialize()

    When this method is invoked, the JobOptionsSvc reads in the job options from the input source.

• IJobOptions interface

  This interface exposes the functionality of the JobOptionsSvc. It provides the following method:

  • StatusCode setMyProperties( const std::string& ClientName, IProperty *me )

    This method is used by a client who wants to override the default values of its properties with those described in the job options. The client must implement the IProperty interface, which will be used by setMyProperties to set the client's properties.

• IProperty interface

  The JobOptionsSvc implements this interface. in order to allow its creator to define the input source for the job options. JobOptionsSvc recognises the following options:

  • TYPE (default=FILE)

    Type of input source. Implemented types are:

    FILE

    ASCII text file. An example options.txt file is available.

  • PATH (default=value of "JOB_OPTIONS" environment variable if set, "options.txt" otherwise)

    Complete pathname of input source.

  It provides the following methods:

  • StatusCode setProperty( const Property &p)

    Allows a client to set the specified property. The property has to be one from the list above.

  • StatusCode getOption(Property *p) const

    This method allows clients to retrieve the specified property that property exists.

A job option modifies the properties of a client. Each option consists of:

• The name of the client whose property will be modified by this option.
• The name of the property to be modified
• The type of the property to be modified. The following types are implemented:

  B

  bool

  D

  double

  F

  float

  I

  int

  S

  std::string - can be either a single word, or a sentence delimited by quotation marks (")

  vB

  std::vector<bool>

  vD

  std::vector<double>

  vF

  std::vector<float>

  vI

  std::vector<int>

  vS

  std::vector<std::string> - can be a set of single words, or a set of sentences delimited by quotation marks (") or a mixture of the two.

• The new value (or values) of the property, of the specified type

Dependencies and requirements

A given property name can occur only once for a given client name. This implies that different instances of a client class must have a different client name if they need different property values for a given property name

By definition, the JobOptionsSvc cannot get its options from the same source as its clients. Its properties be initialised by an external client, usually the ApplicationMgr, or via the JOB_OPTIONS environment variable.

Clients wishing to use the setMyProperties method must implement the IProperty interface.

An archive is needed for previously defined sets of options. In the current implementation this is a set of text files. In a future implementation it could be a database.

An editor is needed to edit the set of options. In the current implementation this is any a text editor. In a future implementation it could be a database editor.