haltcl

HAL TCL Files

The halcmd language excels in specifiying components and connections but offers no computational capabilities. As a result, ini files are limited in the clarity and brevity that is possible with higher level languages.

The haltcl facility provides a means to use tcl scripting and its features for computation, looping, branching, procedures, etc. in ini files. To use this functionality, you use the tcl language and the extension .tcl for halfiles.

The .tcl extension is understood by the main script (linuxcnc) that processes ini files. Haltcl files are identified in the the HAL section of ini files (just like .hal files).

Example

[HAL]
HALFILE = conventional_file.hal
HALFILE = tcl_based_file.tcl
-----

With appropriate care, .hal and .tcl files can be intermixed.

== Compatibility

The halcmd language used in .hal files has a simple syntax that is actually a
subset of the more powerful general-purpose tcl scripting language.


== Haltcl Commands

Haltcl files use the tcl scripting language augmented with the specific
commands of the LinuxCNC hardware abstraction layer (HAL).  The hal-specific
commands are.

....
addf, alias,
delf, delsig,
getp, gets
ptype,
stype,
help,
linkpp, linkps, linksp, list, loadrt, loadusr, lock,
net, newsig,
save, setp, sets, show, source, start, status, stop,
unalias, unlinkp, unload, unloadrt, unloadusr, unlock,
waitusr
....

Two special cases occur for the 'gets' and 'list' commands due to
conflicts with tcl builtin commands.  For haltcl, these
commands must be preceded with the keyword 'hal'.

....
halcmd   haltcl
------   ------
gets     hal gets
list     hal list
....


== Haltcl Inifile variables

Inifile variables are accessible by both halcmd and haltcl but with
differing syntax.

LinuxCNC ini files use SECTION and ITEM specifiers to identify
configuration items.

ITEM1 = value_1 ITEM2 = value_2 …​

…​

The ini file values are accessible by text substition in .hal files using the
form.

[SECTION]ITEM

The same ini file values are accessible in .tcl files using the form of a tcl
global array variable.

$::SECTION(ITEM)

For example, an ini file item like:

MAX_VELOCITY = 4

is expressed as   [AXIS_0]MAX_VELOCITY  in .hal files for halcmd
and as          $::AXIS_0(MAX_VELOCITY) in .tcl files for haltcl

== Converting .hal files to .tcl files

Existing .hal files can be converted to .tcl files by hand editing to adapt to
the differences mentioned above.  The process can be automated with scripts
that convert using these substitutions.

[SECTION]ITEM --→ $::SECTION(ITEM) gets --→ hal gets list --→ hal list

== Haltcl Notes

In haltcl, the value argument for the 'sets' and 'setp' commands
is implicitly treated as an expression in the tcl language.

.Example

set gain to convert deg/sec to units/min for AXIS_0 radius

setp scale.0.gain 6.28/360.0*$::AXIS_0(radius)*60.0

Whitespace in the bare expression is not allowed, use quotes
for that:

setp scale.0.gain "6.28 / 360.0 * $::AXIS_0(radius) * 60.0"

In other contexts, such as 'loadrt', you must explicitly use
the tcl expr command ([expr {}]) for computational expressions.

.Example

loadrt motion base_period=[expr {500000000/$::TRAJ(MAX_PULSE_RATE)}]

== Haltcl Examples

Consider the topic of 'stepgen headroom'.  Software stepgen runs best with an
acceleration constraint that is "a bit higher" than the one used by the motion
planner.  So, when using halcmd files, we force inifiles to have a manually
calculated value.

MAXACCEL = 10.0 STEPGEN_MAXACCEL = 10.5

With haltcl, you can use tcl commands to do the computation and
eliminate the STEPGEN_MAXACCEL inifile item altogether.

setp stepgen.0.maxaccel $::AXIS_0(MAXACCEL)*1.05

Another haltcl feature is looping and testing.  For example, many simulator
configurations use "core_sim.hal" or "core_sim9.hal" hal files.  These differ
because of the requirement to connect more or fewer axes.  The following haltcl
code would work for any combination of axes in a trivkins machine.

Create position, velocity and acceleration signals for each axis

set ddt 0 foreach axis {X Y Z A B C U V W} axno {0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8} { # 'list pin' returns an empty list if the pin doesn’t exist if {[hal list pin axis.$axno.motor-pos-cmd] == {}} { continue } net ${axis}pos axis.$axno.motor-pos-cmd ⇒ axis.$axno.motor-pos-fb \ ⇒ ddt.$ddt.in net ${axis}vel ⇐ ddt.$ddt.out incr ddt net ${axis}vel ⇒ ddt.$ddt.in net ${axis}acc ⇐ ddt.$ddt.out incr ddt } puts [show sig *vel] puts [show sig *acc]

== Haltcl Interactive

The halrun command recognizes haltcl files.  With the -T option,
haltcl can be run interaactively as a tcl interpreter.  This
capability is useful for testing and for standalone hal applications.

.Example

$ halrun -T haltclfile.tcl

== Haltcl Distribution Examples (sim)

The configs/sim/axis/simtcl directory includes an ini file that uses a .tcl file
to demonstrate a haltcl configuration in conjunction with the usage of
twopass processing.  The example shows the use of tcl procedures, looping, the
use of comments, and output to the terminal.