Ntuples vs. TTrees

It is important to note the difference between the ROOT ntuple and the full ROOT Trees. Gleam actually provides 5 outputs: 1 summary ntuple file, and 4 full ROOT trees (Monte Carlo, Digitization, Reconstruction, and Relational Table).

Ntuples. The summary ntuple and the full ROOT trees use the same basic format; however, the ntuple is simpler.  As the name suggestion, the ntuple is tabular where each event consists of a fixed length row of data.  Currently, each element in that row of data is a floating point value. In the near future, the ntuple structure will be updated to allow mixed data types, where each element could be an integer, float, double, or a fixed length array.

Full ROOT Trees. Full ROOT trees are more complex, taking full advantage of ROOT's capability of storing C++ objects.  The precise structure of the data pertaining to a specific event depends on the C++ class definition used to write to the ROOT Tree.  More details on this will be provided in other sections of this workbook.

Note: For an excellent introduction to C++, see Fermilab's ROOT Educational Resources page and refer to C++ Basics for ROOT users.

 

Last updated by: Chuck Patterson 03/04/2005