Allow for using only last trigger validity in postprocessing (#2541)

Closes QC-1281.

Author: knopers8

Framework/include/QualityControl/PostProcessingConfig.h

@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ struct PostProcessingConfig : public o2::quality_control::core::UserCodeConfig {
   core::Activity activity;
   bool matchAnyRunNumber = false;
   bool critical;
+  bool validityFromLastTriggerOnly = false;
 };
 
 } // namespace o2::quality_control::postprocessing

Framework/src/PostProcessingConfig.cxx

@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ PostProcessingConfig::PostProcessingConfig(const std::string& id, const boost::p
       customParameters.set(key, value.get_value<std::string>());
     }
   }
+  validityFromLastTriggerOnly = ppTree.get<bool>("validityFromLastTriggerOnly", false);
 }
 
 } // namespace o2::quality_control::postprocessing

Framework/src/PostProcessingRunner.cxx

@@ -251,6 +251,10 @@ void PostProcessingRunner::reset()
 
 void PostProcessingRunner::updateValidity(const Trigger& trigger)
 {
+  if (mTaskConfig.validityFromLastTriggerOnly) {
+    mActivity.mValidity = gInvalidValidityInterval;
+  }
+
   if (trigger == TriggerType::UserOrControl) {
     // we ignore it, because it would not make sense to use current time in tracking objects from the past,
     // especially in asynchronous postprocessing

doc/Advanced.md

@@ -1878,14 +1878,20 @@ declared inside in the "postprocessing" path. Please also refer to [the Post-pro
         "moduleName": "QcSkeleton",           "": "Library name. It can be found in CMakeLists of the detector module.",
         "detectorName": "TST",                "": "3-letter code of the detector.",
         "initTrigger": [                      "", "List of initialization triggers",
-          "startofrun",                       "", "An example of an init trigger"
+          "userorcontrol",                    "", "An example of an init trigger"
         ],
         "updateTrigger": [                    "", "List of update triggers",
           "10min",                            "", "An example of an update trigger"
         ],
         "stopTrigger": [                      "", "List of stop triggers",
-          "endofrun",                         "", "An example of a stop trigger"
-        ]
+          "userorcontrol",                    "", "An example of a stop trigger"
+        ],
+        "validityFromLastTriggerOnly": "false",  "": "If true, the output objects will use validity of the last trigger,",
+                                                 "": "otherwise a union of all triggers' validity is used by default.",
+        "sourceRepo": {                          "": "It allows to specify a different repository for the input objects.",
+          "implementation": "CCDB",
+          "host": "another-test.cern.ch:8080"
+        }
       }
     }
   }

doc/PostProcessing.md

@@ -164,6 +164,7 @@ Each of the three methods can be invoked by one or more triggers. Below are list
    pass and run.
 * `"once"` - Once - triggers only first time it is checked
 * `"always"` - Always - triggers each time it is checked
+* `"userorcontrol"` - triggers when upon corresponding START and STOP state transitions. This is the recommended trigger for `initTrigger` and `stopTrigger`.
 
 #### Using different databases
 
@@ -189,6 +190,23 @@ The destination repository is always the global one defined in the global config
     }
 ```
 
+#### Output object validity
+
+By default, the objects published by post-processing tasks use narrowest validity which contains all past triggers (except of `userorcontrol`).
+In other words, a trend's validity covers all of the input objects' validity.
+
+If a post-processing task is not used for trending, but e.g. to decorate or correlate some moving window objects while preserving their validity, one can set the `validityFromLastTriggerOnly` parameter:
+
+```
+    "postprocessing": {
+      "MyPostProcessingTaskID": {
+        ...
+        "validityFromLastTriggerOnly": "true",       "": "false by default"
+        ...
+      }
+      ...
+```
+
 ### Running it
 
 The post-processing tasks can be run in three ways. First uses the usual `o2-qc` executable which relies on DPL and