TwistedActor.Actor Standard Commands and Replies

• Overview
• Standard Commands
  • connDev [dev1 [dev2 [...]]]
  • disconnDev [dev1 [dev2 [...]]]
  • help
  • exit
  • ping
  • status

  • debugMsgs on/off
  • debugRefCounts
  • debugWing
• Standard Keywords
  • devConnState=state, reason
  • numUsers=int
  • refCount=refcount, object
  • superseded
  • text
  • timeout
  • unknownCommand=cmdVerb
  • userInfo=userID1, addr1, userID2, addr2, ...
  • version=vers
  • yourUserID=int

Overview

TwistedActor.Actor is core code for writing an actor: an instrument control computer (ICC) or hub-based script that does something useful. This manual describes the standard commands and keywords that any actor based on TwistedActor.Actor will support.

Standard Commands

All actors based on TwistedActor typically support the following standard commands (plus additional device-specific commands documented in that actor's manual). Commands are not case-sensitive.

connDev [dev1 [dev2 [...]]]

Connect one or more devices (if not already connected). The default is to connect all devices that are not already connected.

disconnDev [dev1 [dev2 [...]]]

Disconnect one or more devices (if not already disconnected). The default is to disconnect all devices that are not already disconnected.

help

Print a brief description of each command.

exit

Log yourself out.

ping

Return a short message to indicate that the controller is alive.

status

Print current status, including user information, the connection state of any devices that are not connected and any additional information that is specific to the actor.

debugMsgs on/off

Turn debugging messages on or off (for all users).

debugRefCounts

Display the reference count for each object (in descending reference count) using keyword refCount.

debugWing

Enable debugging via WingIDE (simply imports wingdbstubs).

Standard Keywords

Keyword data is output whenever the state of the actor changes. All actors based on TwistedActor output the following standard keywords (in addition to device-specific keywords described in the manual for that actor).

Notes:

• Dev is a placeholder for a device name
• Numeric values (even integers) will be "NaN" if unknown
• When you first connect you are shown current status, including yourUserID.

devConnState=state, reason

State of connection to the dev hardware controller. State is one of Connecting, Authorizing, Connected, Disconnecting, Failing, Disconnected or Failed (the states of an RO.Comm.TCPConnection object). Reason is the reason it got to this state ("" if no reason specified).

numUsers=int

The number of users presently connected (a single integer)

refCount=refcount, object

The reference count for an object.

superseded

The command was superseded by some other command.

text

Text message (intended for debugging and human consumption).

timeout

The command timed out.

unknownCommand=cmdVerb

The command verb (the first word of your command string) is not supported by this actor.

userInfo=userID1, addr1, userID2, addr2, ...

An variable-length array containing two entries for each user who is presently connected: userID and the IP address. The user ID is an integer and the address is a string. The userIDs will appear in sorted order but are not necessarily contiguous.

version=vers

The version number (as a string) of the actor.

yourUserID=int

Your own userID.