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SctTest

This page descibes the SctTest package which is the primary way of testing the system. It is split into 2 parts, both of which require some additional configuration files. This page tries to describe quite how it all works....

High-level Testing

The executable SctHighLevelTest runs the high-level testing system. This is a direct replacement for the old sct_api_server executable. Much of the functionality is the same: it publishes data from 1 module as raw histogram data.

The data is taken from SCTDAQ root files. A new feature is that it is possible to select which data files are used dynamically.

Low-level Testing

The executable SctTest runs the low-level testing system. It is a drop-in replacement for SctApi (which should not be run at the same time), but instead of talking to hardware, it emulates the hardware and uses SCTDAQ root files as a source of data when asked to do a Scan.

Configuration

Both systems are configured in the same way, with some minor exceptions. There are 3 parts to configuring the whole system:

Please see the appropriate pages for more information on the intent of the files and their format.

There is a script GenerateConfiguration.pl which can be used to automatically generate a configuration file for the ConfigurationService from the ModuleDataFile and the XmlSummaryFile. The test system supports mapping multiple modules to a single set of data. This facilitates stress testing when only a small set of SCTDAQ data is available.

Once all the configuration files are present, it is necessary to set the environment variable SCTDAQ_CONFIGURATION_DATA to the output of GenerateConfiguration.pl, then to run the SCT_test partition in the usual way. Once everything is booted, the ModuleDataFile and XmlSummaryFile can be set using the scripting interface (or replace the default files: $SCT_ROD_DAQ/installed/config/TestConfig/ModuleData.txt and $SCT_ROD_DAQ/installed/config/TestConfig/XmlSummary.txt).

SctRodDaq ships with 1 set of data and appropriate configuration files in $SCT_ROD_DAQ/installed/config/TestConfig for running with 1 test module.

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to configure the test system, see HowToRunASystemTest