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Writing extra data outside an EDM

In some cases it can be necessary to write some additional data that can not (yet) be stored in the EDM. PODIO offers a possibility to store such extra user data via the podio::UserDataCollection. It gives the user access to a std::vector of a set of limited fundamental types, which is written alongside the data stored in the EDM classes for each event.

Example usage

Creating or getting a UserDataCollection via the Frame works the same as with any other collection of the EDM via the put or get functions:

#include "podio/UserDataCollection.h"

// Create a collection and put it into a Frame
userFloats = podio::UserDataCollection<float>();
frame.put(std::move(userFloats), "userFloats");

// get a collection
const auto& userData = frame.get<podio::UserDataCollection<float>>("userFloats");

The interface of the UserDataCollection is similar to a basic version of the std::vector, i.e. push_back, resize and the basic functions for accessing elements are present:

userFloats.push_back(3.14f); // add elements
userFloats.resize(10);       // make the collection have 10 elements
auto value = userFloats[0];  // access elements by index

for (auto&& value : userFloats) {
    // necessary functionality for range-based for-loops
}

for (size_t i = 0; i < userFloats.size(); ++i) {i
    // but also for index based loops
}

For cases where this subset interface is not enough it is also possible to get a reference to the underlying std::vector via the UserDataCollection::vec() method.

Some limitations

Since adding additional fields to an EDM type is almost trivial for PODIO generated EDMs the UserDataCollection capabilities are deliberately kept limited. Here we list what we consider to be the biggest limitations:

No relations to other collections

Since a UserDataCollection is really just a list of numbers it is not possible to form relations to other objects. This also means that users are responsible for keeping a UserDataCollection in sync with an EDM collection if is used to store additional information, e.g.

auto& hits = store.create<HitCollection>("hits");
auto& hitTags = store.create<podio::UserDataCollection<uint16_t>>("hitTags");

for (/* some loop */) {
    auto hit = hits.create();
    // To be able to loop over these in parallel, you have to fill the user data manually
    uint16_t hitTag;
    hitTags.push_back(hitTag);
}

Limited supported types

As mentioned above the possible types that can be stored in a UserDataCollection is currently (deliberately) limited to the following fundamental types

  • fixed width integers: intN_t and uintN_t, with N={8, 16, 32, 64}
  • float and double

Trying to store different types in a UserDataCollection will lead to a compilation error. Note that the usual integer types might be the same as the fixed width version on some platforms. However, the equivalences of different types might be different on different platforms. E.g.

static_assert(std::is_same_v<unsigned long, uint64_t>);

might work on some platforms, but might not work on others.