Contents

• History
• Preliminary remarks
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
  • Data processing flow in particle experiments
  • HBOOK and its output options
    • The functionality of HBOOK
  • What you should know before you start
    • HBOOK parameter conventions
      • Histogram or Ntuple Identiers
      • Parameter types
      • Data packing
  • A basic example
  • HBOOK batch as the first step of the analysis
    • Adding some data to the RZ file
  • HPLOT interface for high quality graphics
• One and two dimensional histograms -- Basics
  • Booking
    • One-dimensional case
      • Special values:
    • Two-dimensional case
  • Filling
  • Editing
  • Copy, rename, reset and delete
• Ntuples
  • CWN and RWN -- Two kinds of Ntuples
  • Row-Wise-Ntuples (RWN)
    • Booking a RWN
    • Filling a RWN
    • Memory resident Ntuples
    • Circular buffer
    • Disk resident Ntuples
  • More general Ntuples: Column-Wise-Ntuples (CWN)
    • Data Compression
    • Storage Model
    • Performance
    • Booking a CWN
    • Describing the columns of a CWN
    • Alternative way of booking a CWN
    • Filling a CWN
    • Recovery procedure
    • Disk resident Ntuples
  • Making projections of a RWN
  • Get information about an Ntuple
    • Retrieve the contents of a RWN into an array
    • Retrieve the contents of a CWN into a common block
    • Generate a user function
    • Optimizing event loops
  • Ntuple operations
    • Duplicate Ntuples
    • Rename a column in an Ntuple
    • One-dimensional convolution of Ntuple
      • Discussion
  • Ntuple examples
    • A more complex example - CERN personnel statistics
• Advanced features for booking and editing operations
  • Overview of booking options
    • Histograms with non-equidistant bins
    • Profile histograms
    • Rounding
    • Projections, Slices, Bands
    • Statistics
    • Function Representation
    • Reserve array in memory
    • Axis labels and histograms
  • Filling Operations
    • Fast Filling Entries
    • Global Filling
    • Filling histograms using character variables
  • Editing operations
    • One-dimensional histograms
    • Two-dimensional histograms
    • Index and General Title
    • What to Print (1-dimensional histogram)
    • Graphic Choices (1-dimensional histogram)
    • Scale Definition and Normalization
    • Page Control
    • Selective Editing
    • Printing after System Error Recovery
    • Changing Logical unit numbers for output and message files
• Accessing Information
  • Testing if a histogram exists in memory
  • List of histograms
  • Number of entries
  • Histrogram attributes Contents
  • Contents
  • Errors
  • Associated function
  • Abscissa to channel number
  • Maximum and Minimum
  • Rebinning
  • Integrated contents
  • Histogram definition
  • Statistics
• Operations on Histograms
  • Arithmetic Operations
  • Statistical differences between histograms
    • Weights and Saturation
      • Weighted 1-dimensional histograms
      • Saturated 1-dimensional histograms
      • 2-dimensional histograms
    • Statistical Considerations
      • The Kolmogorov Test
      • The Power
      • The Confidence Level for 1-dimensional data
      • The Confidence Level for Two-dimensional Data
  • Bin by bin histogram comparisons
    • When to use #HDIFFB>HDIFFB instead of #HDIFF>HDIFF:
    • Choice of 590:
    • When to use the 594 option:
    • When to use the 598 option:
    • When to use the 600 option:
    • Comparison of Weighted versus Unweighted events:
    • Using Profile histograms:
    • Values of 617:
    • Other notes:
    • Statistical methods and numerical notes:
    • Error messages of #HDIFFB>HDIFFB:
    • Statistical comments:
• Fitting, parameterization and smoothing
  • Fitting
    • One and two-dimensional distributions
    • Fitting one-dimensional histograms with special functions
    • Fitting one or multi-demensional arrays
    • Results of the fit
      • Naming the parameters of a fit
    • Retrieving the fitted parameters
    • The user parametric function
      • User specified derivatives
  • Basic concepts of MINUIT
    • Basic concepts - The transformation for parameters with limits.
    • How to get the right answer from MINUIT
      • Getting the right minimum with limits.
      • Getting the right parameter errors with limits.
    • Interpretation of Parameter Errors:
    • Statistical interpretation:
    • Reliability of MINUIT error estimates.
      • A non-physical region:
      • An underdetermined problem:
      • Numerical inaccuracies:
      • An ill-posed problem:
      • Excessive numerical roundoff:
      • Starting too far from the solution:
    • MINUIT interactive mode
    • Overview of available MINUIT commands
      • CLEar
      • CONtour par1 par2 devs ngrid
      • EXIT
      • FIX parno
      • HELP SET SHOw
      • HESse maxcalls
      • IMProve maxcalls
      • MIGrad maxcalls tolerance
      • MINImize maxcalls tolerance
      • MINOs maxcalls parno parno ...
      • RELease parno
      • REStore code
      • SCAn parno numpts from to
      • SEEk maxcalls devs
      • SET ERRordef up
      • SET LIMits parno lolim uplim
      • SET PARameter parno value
      • SET PRIntout level
      • SET STRategy level
      • SHOw XXXX
      • SHOw CORrelations
      • SHOw COVariance
      • SIMplex maxcalls tolerance
  • Deprecated fitting routines
    • Fitting histograms -- Long version
    • Fitting histograms -- Short version
    • Non-equidistant points in a multi-dimensional space -- Long version
    • Non-equidistant points in a multi-dimensional space -- Short version
    • Histogram Fitting with Special Functions
  • Parametrization
    • Histograms and plots
    • Distributions
  • Smoothing
  • Random Number Generation
  • Fitting with finite Monte Carlo statistics
    • The Problem.
    • Methodology.
    • The Solution.
    • Other points concerning the solution
    • Weighted Events
    • HBOOK routines
    • Example of fits
• Memory Management and input/output Routines
  • Memory usage and ZEBRA
    • The use of ZEBRA
  • Memory size control
    • Space requirements
  • Directories
  • Input/Output Routines
    • Reading and writing histograms to a direct access file
    • Open an RZ direct access file or map a Global Section
      • Writing to a file
      • Reading from a direct-access file or global section
    • Merging HBOOK files into a new file
      • Scratching histogram in a file
      • Close a file
  • Exchange of histograms between different machines
    • Transfer between Unix machines with FTP
    • Transfer from CERNVM to a Unix workstation
      • Running FTP on a VAX/VMS systen
    • Proposed HBOOK file naming convention
  • RZ directories and HBOOK files
    • Using subdirectories
• Global sections and shared memory
  • Sharing histograms in memory on remote machines
    • Memory communication
  • Mapping global sections on VMS
    • Using PAW as a presenter on VMS systems (global section)
  • Unix shared memory (Sun and DecStation only!)
    • Using PAW and Unix shared memory (Sun and DecStation only)
  • Access to remote files from a PAW session
  • Using PAW as a presenter on OS9 systems
• HBOOK Tabular Overview
• References
• Index
• List of Subroutines