[Ifeffit] sorting files in Athena

[Ravel, Bruce]

> >>but then you have to ask every beamline owner to
> change the file names, at each synchrotron...

> Not necessarily, it really only applies to those generating 10's or
> 100's of scans such as scanning in QEXAFS mode.  Not to mention that it
> is already implemented in many beamlines that had the foresight on this
> issue and implemented a solution when the beamlines were first created.
> :-)  However, I do agree that some level of group cut/paste could be
> helpful in Athena.


I am willing to go out on a limb and state in a public forum that the
people who run beamlines and write data acquisition software have a
responsibility to their users to think hard about the decisions they
make, acknowledging that even the smallest detail may end up being
important to someone.

Darek's problem is *not* an Athena-specific problem.  It is both
well-known and correct to state that numbers should be zero-padded if
sorting strings containing those numbers should be the same when done
numerically as alphabetically.  Athena is hardly the only program that
would order these files other than how Darek wanted them.  The
beamlines DAQ software shares responsibility for this failure of
Athena.

You could argue that Athena should consider file time stamp when
ordering files as they are read in, but sorting alphabetically is a
valid and unsurprising choice.  That Athena should be more flexible in
resorting the data in the group list is a completely valid feature
request and will get my attention.

All that said, I agree with Dan.  If there is a problem at the
beamline, the user has a right to complain loudly (but politely, of
course).

Oh, and I, too, am a "beamline owner".

B



--
 Bruce Ravel  ----------------------------------- bravel at bnl.gov

 National Institute of Standards and Technology
 Synchrotron Methods Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory
 Building 535A
 Upton NY, 11973

 My homepage:    http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel
 EXAFS software: http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/exafs/
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