It is possible to call operation system commands. Depending on what operating
system commands mean, there are several stories.
1) If you want to use shell or batch command from ROOT, it is very simple.
You can use gSystem class or ,even simpler, just use system(char* command)
function from the interpreter.
2) But my feeling is you don't mean 1). You probably want to read/write to
serial port directly from ROOT. It is possible in pricipal. If you use
Windows95/NT, you need Win32api.dll. This package goes with the latest
cint source package. Win32api.dll is a plug-in interface that you can use
Win32 API from the interpreter. Very basic APIs for serial port access
should be there. Get cint source package from
http://hpsalo.cern.ch/root/Cint.html , unpack it, go to lib/win32api
directory and run setup.bat.
3) If you use Linux, you need to create appropreate shared library by
yourself. I hope somebody else have already built such library. Refer to
ROOT documentation or cint/makecint.txt documentation for building DLL.
Masaharu Goto
>Dear Sir/Madam,
>
>I was wondering whether it would be possible to call operating system
>commands within ROOT. The reason for this would be to use a DAQ program
>that would gather data from hardware attached to a PC, then store this
>data in Ntuple format using ROOT. If it would be easier to write Ntuples
>straight to disk using this DAQ program (in other words, ROOT is never
>involved), where can I find the required structure of the Ntuple file?
>
>Thank you for your time,
>
>Jason Galyardt
>Texas Tech University
>Fermilab - CDF
>
>galyardt@aardvark.phys.ttu.edu