Publish Shared Variables to an EPICS Network

When you publish a shared variable, the EPICS Server I/O server creates a Process Variable (PV) for this shared variable and binds this shared variable to this PV.

The type of this PV corresponds to the data type of this shared variable. For example, when you publish a shared variable with a data type of Double, the EPICS Server I/O server creates a PV with a type of DBF_DOUBLE for this shared variable. After you deploy the processes that contain this shared variable and this EPICS Server I/O server, the EPICS Server I/O server publishes this PV to the EPICS network by using the CA network protocol.

You can publish the following types of shared variables by using EPICS Server I/O servers:

Shared Variable Data Type PV Type Data Type Description PV Category
Single DBF_FLOAT Single-precision floating-point number Numeric
Double DBF_DOUBLE Double-precision floating-point number
Int8 DBF_CHAR 8-bit integer
UInt8 DBF_UCHAR Unsigned 8-bit integer
Int16 DBF_SHORT 16-bit integer
UInt16 DBF_USHORT Unsigned 16-bit integer
Int32 DBF_LONG 32-bit integer
UInt32 DBF_ULONG Unsigned 32-bit integer
Boolean DBF_ENUM True or False logical value Logical
String DBF_String A sequence of characters representing readable text String
Array of Single DBF_FLOAT Array of single-precision floating-point numbers Array
Array of Double DBF_DOUBLE Array of double-precision floating-point numbers
Array of Boolean DBF_ENUM Array of True or False logical values
Array of Int8 DBF_CHAR Array of 8-bit integers
Array of UInt8 DBF_UCHAR Array of unsigned 8-bit integers
Array of Int16 DBF_SHORT Array of 16-bit integers
Array of UInt16 DBF_USHORT Array of unsigned 16-bit integers
Array of Int32 DBF_LONG Array of 32-bit integers
Array of UInt32 DBF_ULONG Array of unsigned 32-bit integers
Note When you publish a shared variable with a data type of array, the EPICS Server I/O server publishes this shared variable as an array PV that contains multiple elements. The value and index of PV elements correspond to the value and index of elements in this shared variable. For example, the EPICS Server I/O server publishes a shared variable with a data type of Array of Double as a PV that has a type of DBF_Double and multiple elements. If the shared variable contains three elements whose values are 15, 5, and 10, the PV also contains three elements whose values are 15, 5, and 10.