Introduction#

caget(pvs, ...): Returns a single snapshot of the current value of each PV.
caput(pvs, values, ...): Writes values to one or more PVs.
camonitor(pvs, callback, ...): Receive notification each time any of the listed PVs changes.
connect(pvs, ...): Optionally can be used to establish PV connection before using the PV.

To use these functions a certain amount of setup work is required. The following code illustrates a simple application which reads a value from one PV, writes to another PV, and monitors a third until terminated with control-C:

from aioca import caget, caput, camonitor, run

async def do_stuff():
    # Using caput: write 1234 into PV1.  Raises exception on failure
    await caput('PV1', 1234)

    # Print out the value reported by PV2.
    print(await caget('PV2'))

    # Monitor PV3, printing out each update as it is received.
    def callback(value):
        print('callback', value)

    camonitor('PV3', callback)

# Now run the camonitor process until interrupted by Ctrl-C.
run(do_stuff(), forever=True)

The run function is just a convenience function to allow async code to be tested, it just creates an asyncio event loop and runs the code under it. If you already have an asyncio event loop you can just call your async function within it and dispense with the run function.

If running under IPython you can also do awaits from the interactive console:

In [1]: from aioca import caput

In [2]: await caput("PV1", 5678)

How do I pronounce aioca?#

Good question. The closest we have to a canonical pronounciation is a-o-ka, as the alternatives are a bit of a mouthful…

Environment Variables#

A number of environment variables affect the operation of channel access. These can be set using the os.environ dictionary – but note that these need to be set before loading the aioca module. The following are documented in the EPICS channel access developers manual.

EPICS_CA_MAX_ARRAY_BYTES: Configures the maximum number of bytes that can be transferred in a single channel access message.
EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST: A space separated list of channel access server addresses.
EPICS_CA_AUTO_ADDR_LIST: If set to NO the automatic scanning of networks is disabled.
EPICS_CA_CONN_TMO: Connection timeout, 30 seconds by default.
EPICS_CA_BEACON_PERIOD: Beacon polling period, 15 seconds by default.
EPICS_CA_SERVER_PORT, EPICS_CA_REPEATER_PORT: Set these to configure the ports used to connect to channel access. By default ports 5064 and 5065 are used respectively.

Example code:

import os
os.environ['EPICS_CA_MAX_ARRAY_BYTES'] = '1000000'

# Note: the first import of aioca must come after the environ is set up.
from aioca import *

Function Reference#

The aioca API consists of the three functions caput, caget and camonitor together with auxilliary connect and cainfo functions. The functions caget and camonitor return or deliver “augmented” values which are documented in more detail in the Working with Values section.

Interactions with other CA libraries#

To ensure some level of interoperability, aioca will only create (and destroy) its own CA context if there is not one set for the asyncio event loop thread. This means that it is safe to:

Use aioca and pyepics in different threads
Use aioca and pyepics in the same thread as long as pyepics is imported before aioca is first used