S4PM 5.9.1 RELEASE NOTES

Release Date

February 6, 2006

Functional Changes

1. Bug Fix in Poll Data Station - A bug was fixed in the Poll Data station that caused the jobs to fail.
   
   

2. Bug Fix for Failed DN Handler - A bug caused the failure handler in the Receive DN station that resubmits requests to not work. This has been fixed.
   
   

3. Refactored Input Work Order Checking - The steps taken by scripts to check input work order names and create output work order names has been cleaned up and refactored.
   
   

4. Algorithm Installation Tool Changes - In previous releases, the Algorithm Installation Tool (a function available via the Configurator station) didn't properly adjust uses of extant data when those data were input for the new algorithm. This has been fixed in this release. If the new algorithm uses any existing data types, the uses of files of those data types are adjusted properly so that they can immediately be used by the new algorithm. In addition, the tool has been modified to allow for the possibility of data type names and versions being overriden in the Stringmaker string configuration file; they are normally set in the Stringmaker data types configuration file.
   
   

5. Track Data Now Accepts Work Order Wildcard - To support the changes to the Algorithm Installation Tool (above), the Track Data station code has been modified to accept the wildcard character * in the list of files specified in the input work order. When this wildcard is included, Track Data will update the uses of all files matching the pattern formed by the wildcard.
   
   

6. Run Algorithm Bug When No Data Produced - A bug in Run Algorithm was fixed that caused the job to fail when no data were produced by the algorithm, yet it exited with a zero.
   
   

7. Prepare Run Performance Improvements - Made several changes in s4pm_prepare_run.pl to improve performance when there are many possible output files for an algorithm.

Detailed File Changes

Configurator.pm

• Added the stop_station() function to stop a running station. It does so by dropping in a STOP work order.

s4pm_allocate_disk.pl

• Minor changes to comments.

s4pm_configurator.pl

• Modified API so that the mode in which the script is run is passed in as an argument rather than being based upon the work order name.

s4pm_find_data.pl

• Added the -pge argument so that the algorithm name doesn't have to be gleaned from the input work order name.

s4pm_poll_data.pl

• The output work order was incorrectly being named REGISTER_DATA rather than just REGISTER. This was corrected.

s4pm_prepare_run.pl

• Added the -pge argument so that the algorithm name doesn't have to be gleaned from the input work order name.

• Modified to save used file names in a hash rather than in an array to improve performances. Also, moved the invoking of S4P::PCF::parse() to outside a loop over output file entries. This too improves performance particularly where the number of output PCF entries is large.

s4pm_preselect_data.pl

• Minor change to comments.

s4pm_request_data.pl

• Removed the checking of the input work order name since this is superfluous and restrictive if we change work order names in the configuration.

s4pm_resubmit_data_request.pl

• Fixed a misnamed work order name: changed DATAREPAIR to DATA_REPAIR.

• Fix to allow it to resubmit requests remotely (via a SCLI on another box).

s4pm_run_algorithm.pl

• Fixed a bug whereby the algorithm would fail if no data were produced. This was due to a leftover log file containing the rusage stats. The fix was to have this log file deleted whenever no data are produced and the algorithm exits with a zero.

s4pm_stringmaker_derived.cfg

• Modified for the new argument added to the s4pm_configurator.pl script.

• Modified for the new argument added to the s4pm_find_data.pl script.

• Modified for the new argument added to the s4pm_prepare_run.pl script.

• Fixed a bug in the handling of the arguments to the s4pm_sweep_data.pl script (the -link and -expire arguments).

s4pm_stringmaker_string.cfg

• Enhanced the documentation describing the $input_symlink_root parameter.

s4pm_sweep_data.pl

• Removed the checking of the work order name since this is superfluous and restrictive if we change work order names in the configuration.

s4pm_tk_install_algorithm.pl

• Modified to properly handle the adjusting of uses when an algorithm is installed.

• Modified to account for the possibility that some parameters in the Stringmaker data types configuration file will be overriden in the Stringmaker string configuration file. Specifically, the data type name and version can now be handled via such overrides in this tool.

s4pm_track_data.pl

• Added capability to handle the '*' wildcard character in file names in the input work order. This allows a single item in the input work order to represent many items in the database (e.g. all items having a particular data type).