Writing a Mini-DST

To write a private Mini-DST file from a DST (or POT), two options are possible. You may:

- either use the $ALEPH/phy/miniprod executable and the MINP data card:

If you do so you will obtain MINIs with the official ALEPH banks, especially those for LEP2 datasets. If you want the correct pad dE/dx for data, you must read input POTs, not DSTs.

Beware ! Using miniprod, you can't select your output events ( all input events are written on the output file) and you can't modify the cuts for QSELEP,QIPBTAG, etc.. However, you may add standard ALEPH banks which are not foreseen in the official MINIs, using the MINA data card (see below).

- or write your own customised MINI:

In that case you can select your events and put (almost) all what you want on your MINI. The MINI-making program is an ALPHA job that you can submit with alpharun; you have to proceed as follows:

1. Read a POT (for Monte Carlo) or a DST (preferable and much faster for real data if you don't need the special pad dE/dx bank PTPX), or even a MINI, declared with a standard FILI card.
2. Declare an output file which will contain your Mini-DST with a FILO card.

3. ALPHA must be informed that you wish to create a Mini-DST with the data card:

   MINI

4. Invoke integer compression with COMP `INTE' to save space (about a factor of two) for the output file.

5. If you want to write on your MINI some additional banks which are not ALEPH standard, you must define their format.

   Banks which are not ALEPH standard are banks which are not described in the documentation file:

   al$general:[doc.bankdoc]bankal.fmt on ALWS,

   $ALEPH/dbase/bankal.fmt on UNIX.

   To define the bank formats: in QUINIT, call the BOS routine BKFMT, one call per bank, see the BOS documentation.

   If you don't do so, these banks will be irrecoverably unreadable when you will try to read your private MINI afterwards.

6. you have to give the list of all your non-standard banks, if any, to the MINI-making program through a data card:

   MINA 'ban1ban2ban3...' where ``bani' are the names (4 letters, as usual) of your private banks.

   MINA may be used also to add to your MINI standard ALEPH banks which are not put in the standard MINIs.

7. In your QUEVNT subroutine, after your analysis and selections, call QWRITE whenever you wish to output an event according to your selection criteria.

8. If you wish to create the ENFLW information on the MINI file, you must put an EFLJ data card.

9. You may define your own QSELEP cuts with the appropriate set of LSxx data cards (see 12.11.4 on p.  ).

When you have written a small sample of events, it is worth checking that these are readable before creating many events.