Introduction

A parameter set or "pset" is a named collection of parameter objects. Psets are often used for component (e.g., "task") input and output parameters, but can also be independent data entities not associated with any single task. Essentially any data model can be represented as a set of parameters. Parameters come in a variety of predefined or user defined types, and a parameter value may be of arbitrary size. While we don't suggest that parameter sets should replace other mechanisms for general data storage (FITS, VOTable, DBMS, etc.) they provide a simple but powerful mechanism for controlling tasks from within a scripting language, and for passing modest amounts of data about within a high level scripted application.

The most common use for a pset is to pass parameters into and out of a "task" type of component. The use of psets is not limited to task components but to simplify the discussion we will mostly refer to tasks components here. The terms keyword and parameter mean much the same thing; both refer to parameters, but keyword normally refers to an instance of a parameter.

Concepts

Parameter Sets

• A component (e.g., a task) may make use of multiple parameter sets.
• Psets may correspond to task parameters or may exist separately from any task as independent data entities.
• Typical parameter sets are a task's input or output parameters, or a data entity (data structure) such as a WCS or parameter fit.
• Parameter sets are either input at task initiation, or output upon successful task termination.
• During execution a task has exclusive access to a pset instance loaded into memory in the task's address space.
• Pset instances may, and often do, persist after task completion.
• A data entity returned as an output pset from one task may be an input pset to another task.

Parameter Definition and Runtime

• A pset definition (similar to a schema) fully defines each parameter, including the parameter name, type, semantic type, units, description, legal values, and so forth.
• A pset instance includes only the parameter name and the attributes of a parameter which vary at runtime (basically this is the name and value). Multiple pset instances may reference the same pset definition .
• A keyword table consists of several parameter set instances all collected together in the same table. Each parameter is represented by at least the pset name, parameter name, and parameter value fields.

For example, if the input to a task consists of its input parameters plus a WCS object represented as a pset, the task would be passed an input keyword table consisting of all the parameters from these two psets. A parameter in the main input pset would identify the WCS pset to be used.

Parameters

• Parameters may be either scalars or 1D sequences of scalar values.
• The base type of a parameter is one of the primitive types: int, float, complex, string, bool, byte (for binary blobs), and so forth.
• Parameters may also have a semantic type denoted by a UCD or UTYPE.
• More complex data entities than these are represented as psets.
• Parameter values may be indirect, referencing another pset, parameter, or other data entity.
• A scalar parameter value may optionally be followed by an error estimate (statistical error, symmetrical, same units as the value).
• More complex errors should be modeled and represented using multiple parameters.

As an example of the mechanism for representing simple errors suppose we have a quantity 8453.23 with an associated error of 0.394. The value and its error would be represented as "8453.23 0.394", with both values in the same units.

Some Details

Parameter Set Instance

Logically a parameter set instance consists of:

• Some system-defined pset attributes describing the pset itself; this is known as the pset descriptor.
• Any number of data keywords (parameters) comprising the user-defined part of the pset.

The system-defined pset attributes are something like the following:

Attribute	Description
ctime	creation date and time
description	short description of what this pset is
mtime	modify date and time
name	pset instance name
psetDef	URI of pset definition
type	type of pset (task i/o, data model, etc.)

The pset attributes are included in every pset instance, hence it is possible, given the psetDef URI, to retrieve the pset definition schema to fully understand the pset.

Keyword Attributes and Values

A keyword instance should include anything which can vary with the instance; everything else is in the parameter definition. The minimum possible keyword attributes are these:

Other possible runtime keyword fields might be the unit or UCD if these are allowed to vary at runtime.

In addition to conventional valid numerical or string values, parameter values can be null, unset, or indefinite:

• A null value means that the parameter has been assigned a value, but the value is null or empty, whatever this means for the particular type of parameter involved. For example, a null pointer, or an empty string. A null value can also be used by an application to indicate that the client does not want to specify a parameter value and prefers that the application apply some built-in default (the alternative would be to have the application use some reserved value).
• An unset value means that no value has been assigned. For example, a CLI might be configured to generate an interactive prompt if a parameter is used for which no value has been set. In this case, if the value has been set to null no query would result and the null indicator would be silently passed on to the application.
• An indef value is numerically indefinite in the sense of IEEE arithmetic. That is, a valid numerical value has been set but this value is indefinite. Any numerical computation involving an indef value produces an indefinite value as the result.

A parameter value can also be indirect, for example it can refer to a pset, parameter, file, etc., via a URI. A "pset" URI refers to another pset or an individual parameter within a pset. A "file" URI refers to a local file. An Internet URI ("http" etc.) points to a data object accessed via the Internet. Indirection is a property of the parameter value (rather than the parameter itself) so that a given parameter can have either a direct or indirect value in a given instance.

Parameter Set Definition

The full definition of a parameter set is specified once and applies to all instantiated psets of that type. For a component the pset definition is part of the metadata and interface definition for the component. For data psets the pset is defined elsewhere, e.g., in the metadata for a package. The pset definition is required to fully understand a pset instance since all parameter attributes are not stored in a pset instance file.

As with a parameter set instance, the parameter set definition consists of both global attributes describing the entire pset, as well as definitions of each individual user-defined parameter. The system-defined pset attributes required are something like the following:

For each parameter something like the following attributes are required to fully define the parameter:

Pset Representation in the Keyword Table

To keep things simple at runtime we would like to pass multiple pset instances encoded within a single keyword table. Each row of the keyword table represents a single parameter instance. This works fine for multiple psets since the pset name is a table column. But what do we do about pset descriptors, i.e., the global attributes which apply to the entire pset? Logically this is most naturally represented as a hierarchical structure, but for simplicity of implementation of the parameter mechanism we would like to represent the logical structure in a simple fashion within a single keyword table.

It appears that this problem can be resolved fairly easily by representing the pset descriptor as a data entity and encoding it as a special case of a pset, a sort of meta-pset of class "pset descriptor". Hence, a pset instance is represented in the keyword table as two psets, the pset descriptor encoded as a set of parameters in a "pset descriptor" pset, and a data pset consisting of only the data keywords of the actual pset.

Pset Representation

Physically a parameter set is defined as an XML document. The schema of this document is "parameter set definition" and is the same for all parameter sets.

The keyword table is also normally represented in XML, however this does not have to be the case. If a binary protocol is used it may be possible, as an optimization, to pass binary representations of parameter data through from the client to the component via the container and execution framework.

(NRAO/ALMA already have simplified prototypes of both the parameter set definition and keyword table as XML representations).

-- DougTody - 22 Jun 2005
to top