The GAF object in PinK

A GAF is a Generic Adamo File storing data in one or more records where each contains a set of dataflows and tables sharing the same data definition but being different instances. In high energy physics for example a record could be an event holding raw data in tables belonging to one dataflow and reconstruction data in tables and dataflows belonging to a second dataflow. A GAF would contain the events from one run in this example.

A GAF can for example be either a random access, a sequential binary or a sequential ASCII file which can be accessed using the appropriate IO-driver (ZEBRA drivers RZ, FZ or IE). It usually contains a so called Key Table holding information specific to the records contained in the GAF, e.g. the run number, the event number and the trigger type in the above mentioned example. A record could also hold a data sample with a certain validity period in which case this period for the specific record is an entry of the Key Table.

This page is maintained by pink@hermes.desy.de; last modification: Jun 16 1995 .