This repository exists to provide two products to the LSST project and user communities.
-
The
data/directory should contain (in sub-directories labeled by version) the change controlled .xml files exported by Enterprise Architect describing the current official state of the LSST System. -
Python scripts (in
python/lsst/syseng_db/and managed byEUPS) to convert those .xml files into an sqlite database and then easily query that database.
Note: In order to get the .xml files, you must have Git's LFS system installed on your machine. See instructions here
http://developer.lsst.io/en/latest/tools/git_lfs.html
##Generating the LSST Parameter Database
This repository is designed so that the .xml files contained in data/ will be
stored in an sqlite database db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db. To generate (or
update) this database, run the script scripts/update_db.py, specifying a
sub-directory of data/. update_db.py will read in all of the .xml files in
the specified sub-directory and load their data into a table in
db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db that is named after the sub-directory. i.e.
python scripts/update_db.py v_0_0
will read through all of the .xml files in data/v_0_0/, and load their data
into the table v_0_0 in db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db. If the table v_0_0
already exists, an exception will be raised. If db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db
does not exist, it will be created.
##Testing the web interface
In order to run the web interface locally, you must have Flask installed somewhere python knows about it. If you are running anaconda (or miniconda)
conda install flask
should set you up.
To test the web interface to this system, navigate into the web_interface/
sub-directory and run
python syseng_db.py
This will initialize a local server. Open a web-browser and go to
127.0.0.1:5000/. You will now have access to a local copy of the website.
##LSST Parameter Database Schema
Each row in db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db corresponds to a parameter taken from
the .xml files in data/. The information stored for each parameter is defined
by the Parameter class defined in python/lsst/syseng_db/ParameterTree.py.
The columns stored in db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db (which correspond to the
properties of the Parameter class are)
-
name -
defaultValue -
upperValue -
lowerValue -
units(defining the units ofdefaultValue,upperValue, andlowerValue) -
docstringwhich documents the meaning of the parameter -
sourcewhich is the name of the .xml file in which this parameter was defined
##Querying the LSST Parameter Database
Once db/LSST_parameter_sqlite.db has been created, the code in
python/lsst/syseng_db provides utility functions to easily query the database
and its tables.
-
get_table_names()returns the names of the tables in a database that you specify -
get_column_names()returns the names of the columns in a table that you specify -
keyword_queryallows you to query a specific table for allParametersthat contain certain keywords in either their names or their docstrings.
Note: all of these methods require you to specify the name of the database you
are querying. The default database and its resident directory are specified in
the dict syseng_db_config, i.e.
import os
from lsst.syseng_db import syseng_db_config
db_name = os.path.join(syseng_db_config['db_dir'], syseng_db_config['db_name'])
will give you the absolute path to LSST_parameter_sqlite.db.
keyword_query will return its results as a list of Parameter objects
(Parameter being the class defined in python/lsst/syseng_db/ParameterTree.py
which carries around the data of a parameter defined in the .xml files).
Parameter comes with a method write_param() which will write the contents of
the Parameter in a human-friendly format, thus
results = keyword_query(db_name, 'v_0_0', ['velocity'])
for param in results:
param.write_param()
will print all of the parameters with the word 'velocity' in either their name or docstring to the screen.