Awhile ago I wrote several scripts for reading in medm screen matrix settings and then writing them out.  It was meant as kind of a mini-burt just for matrices for switching between a couple of different setups quickly.

Yuta has expressed interest in having this instruction available.

In /cvs/cds/caltech/scripts/matrix/ there are 4 python scripts:

saveMatrix.py, oldSaveMatrix.py, loadMatrix.py, oldLoadMatrix.py

The saveMatrix.py and loadMatrix.py are for use with the current front end codes (which start counting from 1), where as the old*.py files are for the old system.

To use saveMatrix.py you need to specify the number of inputs, outputs, and the base name of the matrix (i.e. C1:LSP-DOF2PD_MTRX is the base of C1:LSP-DOF2PD_MTRX_0_0_GAIN for example), as well as an ouptut file where the values are stored.

So to save the BS in_matrix setting you could do (from /cvs/cds/caltech/scripts/matrix/)

./saveMatrix.py -i 4 -o 5 -n "C1:SUS-BS_TO_COIL_MTRX" -f -d ./to_coil_mtrx.txt

The -i 4 indicates 4 inputs, the -o 5 indicates 5 outputs, -n "blah blah" indicates the base channel name, -f indicates a matrix bank of filters (if its just a normal matrix with no filters, drop the -f flag), and -d ./to_coil_mtrx.txt indicates the destination file.

To write the matrix, you do virtually the same thing:

./loadMatrix.py -n "C1:SUS-PRM_TO_COIL_MTRX" -f -d ./to_coil_mtrx.txt

In this case, you're writing the saved values of the BS, to the PRM.  This method might be faster if you're trying to fill in a bunch of new matrices that are identical rather than typing 1's and -1's 20 times for each matrix.

I'll have Yuta add his how-to of this to the wiki.