FairMQ/fairmq/README.md
Alexey Rybalchenko 16fd63cd5b Enable new callback API
- OnData() channel data handler.
 - ConditionalRun() for devices without incoming data.
 - Header file with common main(), to be extended with getDevice/addCustomOptions.
 - Update examples (MQ/Tutorial3) to use the new API and config.
 - NewSimpleMessage() for simpler creation of small messages (additional copy).
 - Replace SetProperty/GetProperty with fConfig access.
 - Runtime configurable channel names for common devices.
 - Configurable logging interval per channel.
 - FairMQMultiplier for distributing same data to multiple outputs.
 - Cleanup state machine messages.
 - Cmd option to toggle signal handling.
 - Simpler API for send/receive timeouts.
 - Enable --log-to-file.
 - Fix coverity issues, warnings.
 - Various code cleanup and minor tweaks.
2016-09-30 14:36:35 +02:00

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Markdown

# FairMQ
The standard FairRoot is running all the different analysis tasks within one process. The FairMQ ([Message Queue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_queue)) allows starting tasks on different processes and provides the communication layer between these processes.
## Devices
The components encapsulating the tasks are called **devices** and derive from the common base class `FairMQDevice`. FairMQ provides ready to use devices to organize the dataflow between the components (without touching the contents of a message), providing functionality like merging and splitting of the data stream (see subdirectory `devices`).
## Topology
Devices are arranged into **topologies** where each device has a defined number of data inputs and outputs.
Example of a simple FairMQ topology:
![example of FairMQ topology](../docs/images/fairmq-example-topology.png?raw=true "Example of possible FairMQ topology")
Topology configuration is currently happening via setup scripts. This is very rudimentary and a much more flexible system is now in development. For now, example setup scripts can be found in directory `FairRoot/example/Tutorial3/` along with some additional documentation.
## Communication Patterns
FairMQ devices communicate via the communication patterns offered by ZeroMQ (or nanomsg): PUSH-PULL, PUB-SUB, REQ-REP, PAIR, [more info here](http://api.zeromq.org/4-0:zmq-socket).
## Messages
Devices transport data between each other in form of `FairMQMessage`s. These can be filled with arbitrary content and transport either raw data or serialized data as described above. Message can be initialized in three different ways:
- **with no parameters**: This is usefull for receiving a message, since neither size nor contents are yet known.
- **given message size**: Initialize message body with a size and fill the contents later, either with `memcpy` or by writing directly into message memory.
- **given message size and buffer**: initialize the message given an existing buffer. This is a zero-copy operation.
After sending the message, the queueing system takes over control over the message body and will free it with `free()` after it is no longer used. A callback can be given to the message object, to be called instead of the destruction with `free()`.
## Transport Interface
The communication layer is available through an interface. Two interface implementations are currently available. Main implementation uses the [ZeroMQ](http://zeromq.org) library. Alternative implementation relies on the [nanomsg](http://nanomsg.org) library. Here is an overview to give an idea how interface is implemented:
![FairMQ transport interface](../docs/images/fairmq-transport-interface.png?raw=true "FairMQ transport interface")
## State Machine
Each FairMQ device has an internal state machine:
![FairMQ state machine](../docs/images/fairmq-states.png?raw=true "FairMQ state machine")
The state machine can be querried and controlled via `GetCurrentStateName()` and `ChangeState("<state name>")` methods. Only legal state transitions are allowed (see image above). Illegal transitions will fail with an error.
If the device is running in interactive mode (default), states can be changed via keyboard input:
- `'h'` - help
- `'p'` - pause
- `'r'` - run
- `'s'` - stop
- `'t'` - reset task
- `'d'` - reset device
- `'q'` - end
- `'j'` - init task
- `'i'` - init device
Without the interactive mode, for example for a run in background, two other control mechanisms are available:
- static (`--control static`) - device goes through a simple init -> run -> reset -> exit chain.
- dds (`--control dds`) - device is controled by external command, in this case using dds commands (fairmq-dds-command-ui).
## Examples
A collection of simple examples in `FairRoot/examples/MQ` directory demonstrates some common usage patterns of FairMQ.
A number of devices to handle the data from the Tutorial3 FairTestDetector of FairRoot are provided as an example and can be found in `FairRoot/base/MQ` directory. The implementation of the tasks run by these devices can be found `FairRoot/examples/advanced/Tutorial3`. The implementation includes sending raw binary data as well as serializing the data with either [Boost Serialization](http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/serialization/), [Google Protocol Buffers](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/) or [Root TMessage](http://root.cern.ch/root/html/TMessage.html). Following the examples you can implement your own devices to transport arbitrary data.