Physics Analysis Workstation

The Physics Analysis Workstation (PAW) is an interactive, scriptable computer software tool for data analysis and graphical presentation in high energy physics (HEP). Developed at CERN since 1986, it is optimized for processing very large amounts of data. It is based on and intended for interoperation with components of CERNLIB, an extensive collection of Fortran libraries.

PAW has been a standard tool in the HEP field for decades, yet has essentially grown beyond maintainability. Despite continuing popularity, it has recently been losing ground to the C++-based ROOT package.

ample script

PAW uses its own scripting language. Here's a sample code (with its actual output), which can be used to plot data gathered in files.

*---------------------
* input data
*---------------------

vector/read X,Y input_file.dat

*--------------------------------
* eps plot
*--------------------------------

fort/file 55 gg_ggg_dsig_dphid_179181.epsmeta 55 -113

opt linx | linear scaleopt logy | logarithmic scale

* draw empy XY panegraph/hplot/null 179.0 181.0 1e3 1e7

*------------------------------------
* here goes plot
*------------------------------------

set plci 1 | line colorset lwid 2 | line widthset dmod 1 | line type (solid, dotted, etc.)graph 32 X Y l | 32 stands for input data lines in input file

*-----------------
* plot title
*-----------------

set txci 1atitle ' [f] (deg)' 'd [s] /d [f] ! (mb)'

*------------------
* plot comments
*------------------

set txci 1text 180.0 2e1 ' [f] =179...181 deg' 0.12

close 55return

External links

* [http://cern.ch/paw/ PAW (at CERN)]
* [http://ref.web.cern.ch/ref/CERN/CNL/2001/001/paw/ The PAW History Seen by the CERN Computer News Letters]
* [http://cern.ch/cernlib/ CERNLIB (at CERN)]
* [http://root.cern.ch/ ROOT (at CERN)]