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This is the complete list of packages. Each has a short description, and each has a link to the package's full documentation.

• Developers: when you add a package to the LArSoft build, document it here! Follow the examples, or start with the wiki source from this YourPackageName.

Some definitions:

1. A package is a collection of related code under a single directory in the LArSoft offline release.
2. A module is the named item that performs an algorithm and makes up an element of your job. A job is a sequence of modules.

A package usually provides any number of modules that performs similar tasks, ie hit finding, but some packages provide no modules (e.g., Utilities) and some provide multiple modules (e.g., ClusterFinder). A package is a code organizational unit, and a module is a runtime (job sequence) unit.

Categories. The categories below give a general sense of what sort of services each package provides.

• Reconstruction: modules for event reconstruction, please see the RecoBase page for an overview of the reconstruction
• Simulation: modules for the simulation chain, please see the Simulation page for an overview of the simulation
• Utility: no run time modules; provides services, classes or methods that are used by other packages

This is a (still-evolving) description of the packages within the LArSoft “distribution” that are unique to LArSoft.

The source code for all packages can be browsed using Doxygen.

For convenience, there's a list of which namespace corresponds to which package in the table below.

Package	Namespace	Category	Short description
RecoBase	recob::	Reconstruction	Classes for reconstruction objects (Wires, Hits, Clusters, …)
AnalysisBase	anab::	Reconstruction	Classes for final-stage reconstruction physics objects (particles, shower energy, …)
CalData	caldata::	Reconstruction	Applies basic channel-level calibrations, turning RawDigits into Wires
Calorimetry	calo::	Reconstruction	Calorimetric reconstruction of 3D tracks
ClusterFinder	cluster::	Reconstruction	Groups hits into collections that are correlated in space and time
EventFinder	event::	Reconstruction	Group Vertex objects into reconstructed Event objects
HitFinder	hit::	Reconstruction	Localizes energy deposition in time on each channel
ShowerFinder	shwf::	Reconstruction	Build showers out of clusters
TrackFinder	trkf::	Reconstruction	Build tracks out of clusters
VertexFinder	vertex::	Reconstruction	Identify vertices
Simulation	sim::	Simulation	Classes related to the simulation
EventGenerator	evgen::	Simulation	The primary interface to all event generation routines (GENIE, CRY, single particle)
DetSim	detsim::	Simulation	Simulates the electronics response of a TPC
LArG4	larg4::	Simulation	Geant4 interface classes
PhotonProgatation	phot::	Simulation	Creates a library for fast simulation of optical photons in LArG4
OpticalDetector	opdet::	Simulation	Algorithms for simulating the operation of the ADCs and FEMs associated with the PMTs
OpticalDetectorData	optdata::	Simulation	Data classes for passing event information between the OpticalDetector modules
Backtracking the simulation	cheat::	Simulation	Classes for producing perfect reconstruction and associating reconstruction to MC truth
EventDisplay	evd::	Utility	The event display
Filters	filt::	Utility	User-defined filters for culling un-desired events from your job/output
Geometry	geo::	Utility	Provides Geometry service that knows all about the LAr geometries
RawData	raw::	Utility	Classes relating to raw data storage
Utilities	util::	Utility	Includes code to do FFT on RawData, find LAr parameters, etc
_AnalysisExample_	lar::example	Instructional	Start here for LArSoft coding basics

LArSoft depends on several other packages. The list below is not exhaustive; it focuses on packages and namespaces that are most likely to be seen in LArSoft source code.

nutools are packages shared by LArSoft and other neutrino experiments at Fermilab, including nova and mu2e. The header files can be found in $NUTOOLS_INC.

Package	Namespace	Short description
EventDisplayBase	evdb::	Common tools and widgets for the event display
EventGeneratorBase	evgb::	Common tools for the event generator, including GENIE.
SimulationBase	simb::	Base classes for truth and simulated particles
G4Base	g4b::	Common classes for Geant4 simulation

ART is the software framework used by LArSoft. It's maintained by the Fermilab computing division.

Package	Namespace	Short description	Location of headers
ART	art::	Framework classes that handle I/O	$ART_INC/art
cetlib	cetlib::	Utility programming components, e.g., pointers and memory management	$CETLIB_INC/cetlib
FHICL	fhicl::	Fermilab Hierarchical Configuration Language, used to configure jobs	$FHICLCPP_INC/fhiclcpp
messagefacility	mf::	Controls the display of messages as a job runs	$MESSAGEFACILITY_INC/messagefacility

The Pandora Software Development Kit provides a set of pattern recognition algorithms for use in LAr neutrino detectors.
Work is currently in progress to integrate these into the LArSoft framework.

These are package written and maintained by the general physics and computing communities.

Package	Namespace	Short description	Location of headers
C++	std::	Extensions to base C++ that are part of the standard language
ROOT	See below	Data-analysis tools	$ROOT_INC
CLHEP	CLHEP::	Class Library for High-Energy Physics	$CLHEP_INC/CLHEP
Geant4	See below	Detector simulations	$G4INCLUDE
GENIE	genie::	Neutrino Monte-Carlo Generator	$GENIE_INC/GENIE
boost	boost::	General programming tools for C++	$BOOST_INC/boost

ROOT and Geant4 do not use namespaces. In general, ROOT classes begin with “T” (e.g., TTree, TH1) while Geant4 classes begin with “G4” (e.g., G4Track, G4Step). Exception: Some of the newer ROOT sub-packages have namespaces (such as ROOT::Math::, ROOT::Fit::, ROOT::Minuit2::, Reflex::, TMVA::).

Some of these packages duplicate functionality; e.g., 4-vectors are implemented in both ROOT and CLHEP. Given a choice, use a package that's higher in the above tables over one that's lower; e.g., choose ROOT classes over their CLHEP equivalents.

To establish some standard, especially for values stored in ROOT files and N-tuples:

• distances are in centimeters (cm);
• energies are in GeV;
• time is in nanoseconds (ns);
• masses are in grams (g).