@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Nonetheless, in an emergency case of a incomplete files already written, there w
The concrete structure of HDF trees evolve during time. Unlike the acquisition software which writes data only at the present moment, Mantid, as an offline data treatment software, has to stay backwards compatible; that is, it must be able to load and process the new data as well as the old data, back to the point in time where nexus was introduced on the given beamline. If the file structure changes often, maintaining this compatibility adds a lot of clutter into the code, which creates an overhead in readability and maintainability (look how LAMP loaders grew over years). Therefore, we would like to avoid compatibility-breaking changes of the schemas as much as possible. Of course, new entries can be added, the optional ones can be moved around with no consequence, but the mandatory ones should ideally never be changed, neither moved, nor removed. The rules are defined based on the current structure of the files, which are supported by Mantid. This also means that they might contain requirements that are there purely for historical reasons and for legacy compatibility. While in principle, some of those could now be removed, it is not desirable, as in that case we will again need to alter the code to support both the old files matching the old rules and the new files matching the new rules.
The repository contains folders per technique and protocols per instrument and acquisition mode.
It lists all the mandatory entries with the full entry path, type, rank, dimensions, units and their descriptions.
It lists all the mandatory entries with the full entry path, type, rank, dimensions, units and a short description.
There is a separate folder that defines the general rules that all the instruments must comply with.
