LINDA: The experiment description language of the MDS-Plus data acquisition system

MDS‐Plus is a general‐purpose, data acquisition software package for pulsed physics experiments. It is based on the concept of an experiment model. The experiment model can be defined by means of the experiment description. The experiment description is a text description of the logical structure of the experiment, which defines the hardware structure together with the data acquisition actions, their sequence, and their interdependencies. The experiment description is then compiled into optimized internal data structures. A language‐sensitive editor provides a user‐friendly tool for producing syntactically correct experiment descriptions. The major design choices of syntax and implementation are presented and its integration with the preparation of the experiment is discussed.