• StandAloneTDL

It is possible to run TDL scripts in "stand-alone" mode (i.e. without a working build of Timba). Of course, no forests will actually be generated, but at least you can check your scripts for syntax errors and consistency. To run TDL stand-alone, you need the following:

• Python 2.3

• The numarray module for Python.

• a number of Python modules from Timba.

The easiest way to set up the Timba modules are as follows:

• get a current copy of the LOFAR/Timba tree (check it out from cvs, or copy from another machine)

• set up symlinks to modules:

  $ cd LOFAR
  $ mkdir installed
  $ cd installed
  $ tar zxvf ../Timba/install-symlinked.tgz

• add LOFAR/installed/symlinked/libexec/python to your $PYTHONPATH.

You can now run a TDL script simply by typing python name.tdl. To print more debugging messages, use python name.tdl -dtdl=2. Use a number higher or lower than 2 for more or less verbosity. Output such as:

• tdl(TDLimpl.py:404:resolve): 1840 total nodes in repository
  

indicates the script has been successfully processed. Syntax errors are reported by Python in the usual way:

•   File "tdl_error.tdl", line 26
      ns.z4 << Meq.Matrix2             2(1,2,3);
                                       ^
  SyntaxError: invalid syntax
  

Logical errors are accumulated in a list and reported by TDL itself:

• Timba.TDL.TDLimpl.CumulativeError: [('NodeDefError', 'Meq.Matrix22 takes
  exactly 4 arguments (3 given)', 'tdl_error.tdl', 26), ('ChildError', 'children
  specified both by arguments and keyword', 'tdl_error.tdl', 27), ('ChildError',
  'child 1 = xx is not initialized', 'tdl_error.tdl', 13), ('ChildError', 
  'child referenced here', 'tdl_error.tdl', 18)]
  

The above is a list of all logical errors detected in the script. For each error message the list also contains a filename and line number.