WWW interfaces for runtime relational database applications, Fusion Eng. and Design 48

The Alcator C-Mod group has been using an electronic lab notebook based on a relational database since the experiment started in 1991. The software, called logbook, provides a shared lab notebook abstraction for all of the participating scientists. It currently contains more than 37,000 text entries. This application and its underlying database schema are also being used at DIIID and NSTX in the US, and installations at TCV at EPFL and H1 at ANU are in progress. A new WEB based user interface is being developed, modeled on the ENTRY_DISPLAY interface, which was written in IDLTM. It provides complete read/write access to the entries table to any authorized user via a WEB browser. This interface places much lower demands on network and computing resources than the IDL/X-Windows based version. ENTRY_DISPLAY is based around an output window that contains a running display of all of the entries which meet some user-specified criteria. As new entries are made, all running copies of the application automatically re-query the database and update their displays. This application was implemented using standard tools provided with the Microsoft SQLSERVERTM database, and Internet Information Server under Windows/NT. An application which accesses the 'Signals' table in this same database, implemented with the same technology, is publicly accessible at http://red.psfc.mit.edu/logbook/signals.htm . It provides an index to the names of the raw and processed data signals stored for the Alcator C-Mod experiment.