It is essential to have simulated raw data for two reasons:

• A reasonable estimate of the structure and size of the data which has to be handled by the DAQ system is needed. The data flow is simulated in the Alice Computing Data Challenges using simulated raw data of different types of events.
• The reconstruction of real data starts from raw data. The development and testing of reconstruction code for real data therefore depends on the availability of simulated raw data. The simulation and reconstruction of raw data will an objective of the next Physics Data Challenge.

The simulated raw data is created from the simulated digits as indicated in the figure below. The reconstruction either uses the raw data directly as input or it takes digits which were created from raw data as input.

The framework for raw data consists of different parts:

• User interface to raw data
• Container formats for raw data
• Raw data format of detectors
• Simulation of raw data
• Reading of raw data
• Reconstruction of raw data

The reading of the first two items is recommended for users and developers. The other items are intended to provide information for developers and can be skipped by users.

The following table documents the status of the raw data simulation and reconstruction code and provides information about the level of integration of the detectors into the framework.