ALF: Support comments in SCA_WRITE_SEQUENCE

Author: PascalBoeschoten

src/CommandLineUtilities/AliceLowlevelFrontend/ProgramAliceLowlevelFrontendClient.cxx

@@ -106,6 +106,14 @@ class ProgramAliceLowlevelFrontendClient: public Program
         cout << "  " << result << '\n';
       }
 
+      {
+        cout << "Writing blob with comments..." << endl;
+        std::string result = scaWriteSequence.write("# Hello!\n11,22\n33,44\n# Bye!");
+        cout << "Done!" << endl;
+        cout << "Got result: \n";
+        cout << "  " << result << '\n';
+      }
+
       while (false)//!isSigInt())
       {
         cout << "-------------------------------------\n";

src/CommandLineUtilities/AliceLowlevelFrontend/ProgramAliceLowlevelFrontendServer.cxx

@@ -398,23 +398,30 @@ class ProgramAliceLowlevelFrontendServer: public AliceO2::Common::Program
       auto sca = Sca(*bar2, bar2->getCardType());
 
       for (std::string token : tokenizer(parameter, sep)) {
-        // Walk through the tokens, these should be the pairs. The pairs are comma-separated, so we split those.
-        std::vector<std::string> pair = split(token, ",");
-        if (pair.size() != 2) {
-          BOOST_THROW_EXCEPTION(
-            AlfException() << ErrorInfo::Message("SCA command-data pair not formatted correctly"));
-        }
-        auto command = convertHexString(pair[0]);
-        auto data = convertHexString(pair[1]);
-        try {
-          sca.write(command, data);
-          auto result = sca.read();
-          getInfoLogger() << (b::format("cmd=0x%x data=0x%x result=0x%x") % command % data % result.data).str() << endm;
-          resultBuffer << std::hex << result.data << '\n';
-        } catch (const ScaException& e) {
-          // If an SCA error occurs, we stop executing the sequence of commands and return the results as far as we got
-          // them
-          break;
+        // Walk through the tokens, these should be the pairs (or comments).
+        if (token.find('#') == 0) {
+          // We have a comment, skip this token
+          continue;
+        } else {
+          // The pairs are comma-separated, so we split them.
+          std::vector<std::string> pair = split(token, ",");
+          if (pair.size() != 2) {
+            BOOST_THROW_EXCEPTION(
+              AlfException() << ErrorInfo::Message("SCA command-data pair not formatted correctly"));
+          }
+          auto command = convertHexString(pair[0]);
+          auto data = convertHexString(pair[1]);
+          try {
+            sca.write(command, data);
+            auto result = sca.read();
+            getInfoLogger() << (b::format("cmd=0x%x data=0x%x result=0x%x") % command % data % result.data).str()
+              << endm;
+            resultBuffer << std::hex << result.data << '\n';
+          } catch (const ScaException &e) {
+            // If an SCA error occurs, we stop executing the sequence of commands and return the results as far as we got
+            // them
+            break;
+          }
         }
       }
 

src/CommandLineUtilities/AliceLowlevelFrontend/README.md

@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ A basic write to the SCA
 #### SCA write sequence
 Write a sequence of values to the SCA
 * Service type: RPC call
-* Service name: SCA_SEQUENCE_WRITE
+* Service name: SCA_WRITE_SEQUENCE
 * Parameters: A sequence of pairs of SCA command and data. The pairs are separated by newline, the command and data by 
     comma: 
     ~~~
@@ -64,6 +64,10 @@ Write a sequence of values to the SCA
     ~~~
     "10,11\n20,21\n30,31"
     ~~~
+    Comment lines are allowed, they must start with a `#`. For example:
+    ~~~
+    "# Hello!\n11,22\n33,44\n# Bye!"
+    ~~~ 
 * Return: A sequence of SCA read return values corresponding to the commands from the input sequence:
     ~~~
     "[value 0]\n[value 1]\n[etc.]"