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.TH MXAUTOSAVE.DAT 5 "October 2011" "MX Administrator Manuals"
.SH NAME
mxautosave.dat - mxautosave configuration file
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B mxautosave.dat
is the conventional name for a save/restore configuration file used by
.B mxautosave.
If
.B mxautosave
is being used for a manual save or restore, then some other name will likely
be used, but the file format remains the same.  Please note that this new
format of the file was introduced in MX 1.1.0.  Older versions of 
.B mxupdate
used a different format.

.SH EXAMPLES

Here is an example of the 
.B mxautosave.dat
format:

.nf
mx localhost@9727:edge_energy.value    0x0
mx d_spacing.value      0x0
mx theta_real.position  0x1 theta_real.set_position
epics wml:scaler1.FREQ  0x0
epics wml:m1.RBV        0x1 wml:m1.VAL
epics_motor_position wml:m1.RBV 0x1
.fi

The first field identifies what kind of variable this is, with currently
allowed values of 'mx', 'epics', and 'epics_motor_position'.  The next
field is the name of the variable, while the third field is for setting
optional hex flags to modify the behavior of the program.  A flag
setting of 0x1 means to write the saved value back to a different
variable than it was read from.  For example,

.nf
mx theta_real.position  0x1 theta_real.set_position
.fi

means save the value of theta_real.position and restore it to
theta_real.set_position.  Similarly,

.nf
epics wml:m1.RBV        0x1 wml:m1.VAL
.fi

means save the value of wml:m1.RBV and restore it to wml:m1.VAL.  Of
course, if wml:m1 is an EPICS motor record, the above line will do the
wrong thing and actually command a move of wml:m1.  For
that reason, I have introduced the special case

.nf
epics_motor_position wml:m1.RBV 0x1
.fi

For this case, 0x1 once again means that the saved value is to be
restored to a different place than it was read from.  However, you do
not need to specify the name of that place since 
.B mxautosave
knows how to handle restoring the value of an EPICS motor.

One thing to watch out though, when saving EPICS PVs, 
.B mxautosave
constructs an MX variable name that is derived from the EPICS PV name.
So 'wml1:m1.RBV' will be saved in mxsave.[12] under the MX variable name
'wml:m1_RBV.value'.  The only case in which this is a problem is if the
derived MX variable name is longer than 40 characters.
For now, if two different EPICS variables in
.B mxautosave.dat
are mapped to the same MX variable, only the first one will
accurately have its value saved and restored.

.SH SEE ALSO
.B mxautosave(8)

.SH AUTHOR
William Lavender <lavender@agni.phys.iit.edu>