The Physics Analysis Workstation (PAW) is an interactive, scriptable computer software tool for data analysis and graphical presentation in
high-energy physics.
The development of this software tool started at
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...
in 1986, it was optimized for the processing of very large amounts of data. It was based on and intended for inter-operation with components of
CERNLIB, an extensive collection of
Fortran libraries.
PAW had been a standard tool in high energy physics for decades, yet was essentially unmaintained. Despite continuing popularity as of 2008, it has been losing ground to the
C++-based
ROOT
In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...
package. Conversion tutorials exist. In 2014, development and support were stopped.
Sample script
PAW uses its own scripting language. Here is sample code (with its actual output), which can be used to plot data gathered in files.
* read data
vector/read X,Y input_file.dat
* eps plot
fort/file 55 gg_ggg_dsig_dphid_179181.eps
meta 55 -113
opt linx , linear scale
opt logy , logarithmic scale
* here goes plot
set plci 1 , line color
set lwid 2 , line width
set dmod 1 , line type (solid, dotted, etc.)
graph 32 X Y AL , 32 stands for input data lines in input file
* plot title and comments
set txci 1
atitle ' (deg)' 'd d (mb)'
set txci 1
text 180.0 2e1 ' 179...181 deg' 0.12
close 55
References
External links
PAW (at CERN)The PAW History Seen by the CERN Computer News LettersCERNLIB (at CERN)ROOT (at CERN)
Free science software
Free software programmed in Fortran
Physics software
CERN software
{{physics-software-stub