This chapter introduces several bits of terminology that you will encounter as you read the remainder of the bufdump documentation. If you are pretty sure you will understand the program without this explanatory chapter, feel free to skip ahead, returning here to clarify the meaning of terms that you may not understand.
In this chapter you will learn about:
Data sources
Bit patterns
Buffer filters
Search patterns
Packets and packet definition files
Plugins
Bufdump must have a source of buffers to format. In this manual, sources of buffers will be called Data Sources. Event sources can be one of the following two types:
Offline event sources are simply event data files that have been acquired by the NSCL data acquisition system.
Online event sources are computers that are currently taking data. Note that the time it takes to request a buffer from an online data source will depend on how quickly the readout program is producing buffers.
Event sources are opened by using the -> command. This command is described in detail in Chapter 3: The file menu.