The Low Level API
Client Access to Parameters
The low level API provides a simple synchronous approach for reading or manipulating device parameters.
First of all, one needs to acquire an instance of the toptica.lasersdk.client.Client class:
from toptica.lasersdk.client import Client, NetworkConnection
with Client(NetworkConnection('My Laser')) as client:
The toptica.lasersdk.client.Client class provides functions that take the full parameter name as string. Reading and writing parameter values is straightforward:
print(client.get('system-label', str))
client.set('system-label', 'Please do not touch!')
Invoking events is a piece of cake:
client.exec('laser1:dl:lock:close')
Some laser devices support events with extensions (aka commands) such as a return value, arguments, input and output streams. All those features are also supported:
# Execute command with two arguments that returns a bytes object
result = client.exec('laser1:recorder:data:get-data', 0, 100, return_type=bytes)
# Execute command with binary output stream and no return value
client.exec('system-service-report:service-report', output_type=bytes)
# Execute command with one argument, binary input stream, string-type
# output stream, and no return value
with open('DLCpro-archive.fw', 'rb') as f:
data = f.read()
output_stream = client.exec('fw-update:upload', f.name, input_stream=data, output_type=str)
Parameter Subscription
It is also possible to get notifications on parameter value changes by subscribing to parameters. To subscribe to a particular parameter a callback function must be provided that is invoked by the library on each parameter value change:
from toptica.lasersdk.client import Client, NetworkConnection, Subscription, Timestamp, SubscriptionValue
def callback(subscription: Subscription, timestamp: Timestamp, value: SubscriptionValue):
print("{}: Parameter '{}' changed its value to {}".format(timestamp.time(), subscription.name, value.get()))
with Client(NetworkConnection('172.16.109.112')) as client:
with client.subscribe('laser1:dl:cc:current-act', callback):
client.run(10)
The function toptica.lasersdk.client.Client.subscribe() returns a toptica.lasersdk.client.Subscription object that manages the lifetime of the subscription.
Note that after subscribing the program control must be transfered to the library by calling toptica.lasersdk.client.Client.run() or toptica.lasersdk.client.Client.poll() in order to make the callback mechanism work.