The bla script

Here is an overview of the command line bla program and a summary of which command line switches are recognized by each task:

bla herfd [cxespvnfqh]  <stub>
bla rixs  [cxspvnfqh]   <stub>
bla xes   [cipvnqh]     <stub>
bla plane [cpvnqh]      <stub>
bla map   [crpvnqh]     <stub>
bla mask  [csvnfqh]     <stub>
bla point [ceih]        <stub>

   --config   | -c    [string]  configuration file (required)
   --energy   | -e    [integer] emission energy (required for herfd/point tasks)
   --incident | -i    [integer] data point at which compute HERFD (required for point/xes task)
   --xdiini   | -x    [string]  XDI configuration file
   --noscan           [flag]    true if no scan file is present
   --reuse    | -r    [flag]    reuse mask files for energy map if in outfolder
   --save     | -s    [flag]    save mask as gif
   --plot     | -p    [flag]    plot data (herfd/rixs/map/xes tasks)
   --verbose  | -v    [flag]    write progress messages
   --nocolor  | -n    [flag]    turn off color coding of screen output
   --noscan           [flag]    do not use scan file
   --xesimage         [integer] specify which image to use for XES
   --format   | -f    [string]  output static image format, gif or tif
   --quiet    | -q    [flag]    suppress progress messages
   --help     | -h    [flag]    write this message and exit

The bla script assumes that scan files and image files have related names. In this example, the <stub> is Aufoil1, then scan file is called Aufoil1.001, and the image files are called Aufoil1_NNNNN.tif. The NNNNN in the image file name indicates the data point and is reflected in one of the columns of the scan file. If your data do not follow these patterns, this script will fail. File locations are specified in the configuration file.

examples:  bla herfd -c=/path/to/config.ini -e=9713 Aufoil1
           bla rixs  -c=/path/to/config.ini Aufoil1
           bla plane -c=/path/to/config.ini Aufoil1
           bla map   -c=/path/to/config.ini Aufoil1
           bla xes   -c=/path/to/config.ini -i=11970 Aufoil1
           bla mask  -c=/path/to/config.ini -e=9713 Aufoil1
           bla point -c=/path/to/config.ini -e=9713 -i=10 Aufoil1

Here, “Aufoil1” is the stub, i.e. the basename of the scan and image files, and the -c and -e command line options are demonstrated.

The -i flag, used by point and xes can take either an integer, indicating the index of the data point, or a number, indicating the incident energy of the datapoint. So the following may be equivalent:

bla point -c=/path/to/config.ini -e=9713 -i=69 Aufoil1
bla point -c=/path/to/config.ini -e=9713 -i=12000 Aufoil1

For the point task, the -i flag must be specified. For the xes task, if the -i flag is omited, the midpoint of the scan (in index, not in energy) will be used.

Options that are not used by a function (for example -e for rixs or map, or -i for any task other than point or xes) will be silently ignored.

-c is required for all functions unless the BLACONFIG environment variable is set.

The -r flag is a time-saver for the rixs, map, and xes tasks. When present, this flag tells the program to reuse any mask images or scan files found in the output folder. This is safe so long as the mask creation parameters in the configuration file have not been changed.

Since the point task returns a number intended for use during data acquisition, verbosity is turned off regardless of the command line switches. Use the -q flag if you want to suppress screen messages during the mask task. Saving is turned on for the mask task regardless of the command line switches.

-p will cause a plot to be made using Gnuplot before exiting for the herfd, xes, and map tasks. The program and plot will exit when you hit return. For the rixs task, the most recent HERFD spectrum will be plotted before immediately going on to the next emmission eenrgy. The HERFD plots are quite crude, without axis labels or other ornaments.

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Xray::BLA and METIS are copyright © 2011-2014, 2016 Bruce Ravel and Jeremy Kropf – This document is copyright © 2016 Bruce Ravel

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