In daqconf it's possible to create a diagram of a DAQ configuration in the DOT graph description language, which can then be fed to the dot program to generate a viewable graphic. This is accomplished using the create_config_plot application. You can run create_config_plot -h to see how it's used, but to explain it simply, you provide it with a database file, the name of a session in that database, and then the name of an object associated with the session. It will create a plot using that object as the root of the plot. Note the object either needs to be the session itself, or a segment or an application in it. E.g., with the daqsystemtest repo you can generate a plot of the mlt application in its ehn1-local-2x3-config test DAQ session via:
create_config_plot -f config/daqsystemtest/example-configs.data.xml -s ehn1-local-2x3-config -r mlt
and if you want to plot the entire session, you can run
create_config_plot -f config/daqsystemtest/example-configs.data.xml -s ehn1-local-2x3-config -r ehn1-local-2x3-config
or a shorthand version of that command is
create_config_plot -f config/daqsystemtest/example-configs.data.xml -s ehn1-local-2x3-config
...where if no root object is specified the default is for create_config_plot to take the session passed to -s and use it as the root object. Also note that in the event that there's a single session in the database, the -s <session-name> argument isn't required. Any of the above commands will create (or clobber) a file called config.dot. If you wish to give the file a different name you can use the -o option, e.g., -o mypreferredname.dot. Once you have the DOT file, you can generate a graphic by doing the following:
dot -Tsvg -o mypreferredname.svg config.dot
...which can then be displayed, e.g., in a browser window via the link file:///path/to/file/mypreferredname.svg.
Note that while dot is available on the np04 cluster's system, it's not necessarily available on other hosts. If you're on another host, you may need to execute spack load graphviz in your work area to get the dot executable. Note that in this scenario that after you're done using dot if you wish to develop code you'll want to spack unload graphviz; more generally, your build environment isn't guaranteed to continue working after you run spack load <package>.
This MLT application plot is taken from the local-1x1-config in the daqsystemtest repo (as of Nov-6-2024). Notice that the DataSubscriberModule instance would receive, among other tcs_.* messages received over the network, tcs_random-tc-generator messages sent by the RandomTCMakerModule instance in the same application:
This is the full session associated with the local-1x1-config in the daqsystemtest repo. Notice here you can see the loopback effect for the MLT application described above:
