Configuration File
A configuration file is used by MSL-Equipment to:
Specify which Databases to use
Specify the equipment that is being used to perform a measurement
Specify additional parameters to use in your program
The configuration file uses the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format to specify this information.
The following illustrates an example configuration file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<msl>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Whether to open all connections in demo mode. -->
<demo_mode>true</demo_mode>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Set the path to the GPIB library file.
Specifying this element is necessary only if the file is not automatically
found or if you want to use a different file than the default file. -->
<gpib_library>/opt/gpib/libgpib.so.0</gpib_library>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Add paths to where external resource files are located. The
paths get appended to Config.PATH and os.environ['PATH']. If a recursive="true"
attribute is included, then recursively adds all sub-directories starting from
the root directory (also includes the root directory). The <path> element may
be specified multiple times. -->
<path>D:\code\SDKs</path>
<path recursive="true">C:\Program Files\Manufacturer</path>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Set the PyVISA backend library.
@ivi (PyVISA >=1.11)
@ni (PyVISA <1.11)
@py (PyVISA-py)
@sim (PyVISA-sim) -->
<pyvisa_library>@py</pyvisa_library>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Specify the equipment that is being used to perform the measurement
and assign an "alias" that you want to use to associate for each equipment. You
only need to specify enough XML attributes to uniquely identify the equipment record
in an Equipment-Registry database. For example, if there is only 1 equipment record
in the Equipment-Registry databases (see the <registers> tag below) that is from
"Company XYZ" then specifying manufacturer="Company XYZ" is enough information to
uniquely identify the equipment record. If in the future another equipment record
is added to an Equipment-Registry database for "Company XYZ" then an exception will
be raised telling you to specify more information in the configuration file to
uniquely identify a single equipment record. -->
<equipment alias="dmm" manufacturer="Keysight" model="34465A"/>
<equipment alias="scope" manufacturer="Pico Technologies"/>
<equipment alias="flipper" manufacturer="Thorlabs" model="MFF101/M" serial="123456"/>
<!-- REQUIRED: Specify the Equipment-Register Databases to load equipment records from. -->
<registers>
<!-- The "team" attribute is used to specify which research team the
Equipment-Register database belongs to. -->
<register team="P&R">
<path>Z:\Equipment\Equipment Register.xls</path>
<!-- If there are multiple Sheets in the Excel database then you must specify the
name of the Sheet that contains the equipment records. This Excel database
also contains connection records (see the <connections> tag below) and so
the <sheet> tag must be specified. -->
<sheet>Equipment</sheet>
</register>
<register team="Electrical">
<path>H:\Quality\Registers\Equipment.xlsx</path>
<!-- No need to specify the Sheet name if there is only 1 Sheet in the Excel database. -->
</register>
<register team="Pressure">
<!-- Using the XML or JSON format to store equipment records allows for including
MaintenanceRecords, CalibrationRecords, MeasurandRecords, ... -->
<path>J:\Registers\Equipment.xml</path>
</register>
<!-- For a text-based database (e.g., CSV, TXT files) you can specify how the dates are
formatted and the encoding that is used in the file (UTF-8 is assumed if the encoding
is not specified). A CSV database uses "," as the delimiter and a TXT database uses
"\t" as the delimiter. -->
<register team="Time" date_format="%d.%m.%y" encoding="cp1252">
<path>W:\Registers\Equip.csv</path>
</register>
<register team="Mass" date_format="%Y-%m-%d">
<!-- You can also specify the database path to be a path that is relative to the
location of the configuration file. For example, this "equip-reg.txt" file is
located in the same directory as the configuration file. -->
<path>equip-reg.txt</path>
</register>
<register team="Length" user_defined="apples, pears, oranges">
<!-- An EquipmentRecord has standard properties (e.g, manufacturer, model, ...) that
are read from the database. You can also include additional fields from the database
that are not part of the standard properties. Include a "user_defined" list
(comma-separated) of additional properties to include. The field names that
contain the text "apples", "pears" and "oranges" are added to the "user_defined"
dictionary for all EquipmentRecord's in this register. -->
<path>I:\LS-Equip-Reg\reg.csv</path>
</register>
</registers>
<!-- OPTIONAL: Specify the Connection Databases to load connection records from. -->
<connections>
<connection>
<path>Z:\Equipment\Equipment Register.xls</path>
<!-- Must also specify which Sheet in this Excel database contains the connection records.
This "Equipment Register.xls" file also contains an "Equipment" Sheet, see the
<register team="P&R"> element above. -->
<sheet>Connections</sheet>
</connection>
<!-- You can set the encoding that is used for a text-based database. -->
<connection encoding="utf-16">
<!-- Specify a relative path (relative to the location of the configuration file). -->
<path>data/my_connections.txt</path>
</connection>
</connections>
<!-- OPTIONAL: You may define your own elements. -->
<max_temperature units="C">60</max_temperature>
</msl>
The Config class is used to load a configuration
file and it is the main entry point, for example
>>> from msl.equipment import Config
>>> cfg = Config('config.xml')