NAME

Xcalibur::Rawfile - Making use of the Xcalilbur XDK

SYNOPSIS

use Xcalibur::Rawfile qw( contains_ms2 );

if( contains_ms2( "data01.RAW" ) ){

# do something
# such as analyze the ms2 spectra with SEQUEST

}

...

DESCRIPTION

Xcalibur software provides instrument control and data analysis for Thermo Finnigan mass spectrometers and related instruments.

<quote>

The Xcalibur Development Kit is a suite of programmable COM objects which allow display and manipulation of Xcalibur data and access to Xcalibur files. The objects are primarily intended to be used in either Visual C++ or Visual Basic to write specialised applications for use with Xcalibur.

</quote>

As a COM interface the XDK can be manipulated in perl via Win32::OLE. Win32::OLE::Variant is also required because the XDK returns variants by reference. To pass an uninitialized VT_BSTR|VT_BYREF requires Activestate perl 5.8.*

It is envisioned that this module will contain utility functions that will make it easier to work with the Xcalibur XDK.

SEE ALSO

http://www.thermo.com/

file:///C:/Xcalibur/Help/xdkhelp/index.htm

file:///C:/Xcalibur/examples/xdk/

( if you have Xcalibur and the XDK installed on your system )

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

David Stranz ( david_stranz@massspec.com ) for introducing me to the XDK and showing me a Visual Basic example of how to work out which raw files contain MS2 spectra.

AUTHOR

Mark Southern (msouthern@exsar.com)

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2003, ExSAR Corporation. All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html)