Source id formatting as string

[alessandrothea]

The SourceID::to_string method formats the source id as a hex number.
What's the rationale for that? The source id doesn't seem to have any substructure that the hex representation makes easier to visualise, nor the id is expressed as an ex elsewhere (e.g. in the hardware map).

[alessandrothea]

@bieryAtFnal Any insight?

[eflumerf]

I think it followed from the earlier element and link IDs which were also always expressed in hex. I think this is a fairly easy change to make, though it may have some knock-on effects in the HDF5 file format (if they're processing Source ID strings).

[bieryAtFnal]

If we stop using hex, would the numeric values be zero-padded or simple numbers?
Like "Detector_Readout_5"?

I've only run a quick test so far, but some things "just work" with an unadorned decimal number. For example, I can run HDF5LIBS_TestDumpRecord on a file that has been written, and it decodes things correctly. Some of the data checks in the integration tests would need updating, though.

AND, we will certainly need to check with offline folks, before we change this. They may be using the hex digit for something, even though they don't need to ...

[alessandrothea]

We could add some padding with zeroes to regularise the size of the field.

You're right about offline, although I hope they're not using it...

[eflumerf]

Pinging this. From the conversation, it appears that some communication is needed with the Offline before moving forward. (I did confirm that we are still writing out 32-bit hex values for SourceID IDs.