- previously would always return "constant" as the instance for
an optional dir/file that wasn't found.
However, this meant retesting to screen out false positives.
Now support an additional parameter
'bool constant_fallback = ...'
to return "constant" or an empty word.
The method signature changes slightly with a new optional bool
parameter:
//! Return \c "constant" instead of \c "" if the search failed
const bool constant_fallback = true
ENH: code consolidation for findInstancePath
- relocate from Time to TimePaths and provide an additional static
version that is reused in fileOperations
BUG: distributedTriSurfaceMesh:::findLocalInstance broken (#3135)
- was not checking the parent at all.
COMP: remove unused findInstancePath(const fileName&, ..) method
- on large memory systems (eg, 6TB) the process information
exceeds an 'int' range, so adjust parsing of the /proc/..
to use int64
ENH: update/modernize OSspecific system information
ENH: minor update of profiling code
- std::string, noexcept, lazier evaluations
STYLE: use direct call of memInfo
- avoids clutter of argList::envGlobalPath() ...
ENH: allow temporary overwriting of output writeFormat
- allows switching for particular output routines
COMP: explicitly use TimePaths methods with Time
- this simplifies any overloading done at a later stage
- new format option keywords: timeFormat, timePrecision
CONFIG: default ensight output is now consistently BINARY
- this removes some uncertainty with the ensightWrite functionObject
which was previously dependent on the simulation writeFormat
and makes its behaviour consistent with foamToEnsight
Note: binary Ensight output is consistent with the
defaults for VTP output (inline binary)
ENH: minor adjustment of ensight writing methods
- Time is normally constructed with READ_MODIFIED for its controlDict
and objectRegistry, but for certain applications (eg, redistributePar)
it can be useful to construct without file monitoring and specifying
MUST_READ instead.
Example,
Info<< "Create time\n" << Foam::endl;
Time runTime
(
Time::controlDictName,
args,
false, // Disallow functionObjects
true, // Allow controlDict "libs"
IOobjectOption::MUST_READ // Instead of READ_MODIFIED
);
- update TimeState access methods
- use writeTime() instead of old method name outputTime()
- use deltaTValue() instead of deltaT().value()
to avoids pointless construct of intermediate
- files might have been set during token reading so only on
known on master processor.
Broadcast names to all processors (even alhough they are only
checked on master) so that the watched states remain synchronised
- functionality introduced by openfoam.org to support selective
caching of temporary fields. The purpose is two-fold: to enable
diagnostics and to allow more places to use unregistered fields by
default.
For example to cache the grad(k) field in
cacheTemporaryObjects
(
grad(k)
);
If the name of a field which in never constructed is added to the
cacheTemporaryObjects list a waning message is generated which
includes a useful list of ALL the temporary fields constructed
during the time step
Multiple regions are also supported by specifying individual region
names in a cacheTemporaryObjects dictionary.
cacheTemporaryObjects
{
porous
(
porosityBlockage:UNbr
);
}
functions
{
writePorousObjects
{
type writeObjects;
libs (utilityFunctionObjects);
region porous;
writeControl writeTime;
writeOption anyWrite;
objects (porosityBlockage:UNbr);
}
}
- recover the target of symbolic links.
This is needed when re-creating a file tree on another rank.
ENH: handle checkGzip, followLink flags in fileHander filePath()
- previously just relied on the backend defaults, now pass through
- separate init(...) for common constructor init steps
- include -no-libs option by default, similar to '-lib',
which makes it available to all solvers/utilities.
Add argList allowLibs() method to query it.
- relocate with/no functionObjects logic from Time to argList
itself as argList allowFunctionObjects()
- add libs/functionObjects override handling to decomposePar etc
ENH: report the stream relativeName for IOerrors (see c9333a5ac8)
STYLE: qualify format/version/compression with IOstreamOption not IOstream
STYLE: reduce number of lookups when scanning {fa,fv}Solution
STYLE: call IOobject::writeEndDivider as static
- adds handling of negative start times for masterUncollatedFileOperation
as well (#1112).
- handle failures *after* restoring non-parRun mode.
This ensures exit(FatalError) will exit MPI properly as well.
STYLE: replace "polyMesh" with polyMesh::meshSubDir
STYLE: adjust IOobject read/write enumerated values
- provision for possible bitwise handling
- simplifies local toggling.
- centralize fileModification static variables into IOobject.
They were previously scattered between IOobject and regIOobject
- deprecated Feb-2018, but not marked as such.
The set() method originally enforce an additional run-time check
(Fatal if pointer was already set), but this was rarely used.
In fact, the set() method was invariably used in constructors
where the pointer by definition was unset.
Can now mark as deprecated to catch the last of these.
We prefer reset() for similarity with std::unique_ptr
Eg,
FOAM_EXTRA_CXXFLAGS="-DFoam_autoPtr_deprecate_setMethod" wmake
- libs() singleton method for global library handling
- explicit handling of empty filename for dlLibraryTable open/close.
Largely worked before, but now be more explicit about its behaviour.
- add (key, dict) constructor and open() methods.
More similarity to dimensionedType, Enum etc, and there is no
ambiguity with the templated open().
- construct or open from initializer_list of names
- optional verbosity when opening with auxiliary table,
avoid duplicate messages or spurious messages for these.
- basename and fullname methods (migrated from dynamicCode).
- centralise low-level load/unload hooks
- adjust close to also dlclose() aliased library names.
- makes it easier to distinguish between pointers referring to pool
data versus pointers actually holding storage, avoids
manual demand-driven deletion and autoPtr.
ENH: simplify/improve Pstream profiling
- times now double (not scalar) for consistency with what cpuTime
delivers
- use bool to track suspend state
- previously introduced `getOrDefault` as a dictionary _get_ method,
now complete the transition and use it everywhere instead of
`lookupOrDefault`. This avoids mixed usage of the two methods that
are identical in behaviour, makes for shorter names, and promotes
the distinction between "lookup" access (ie, return a token stream,
locate and return an entry) and "get" access (ie, the above with
conversion to concrete types such as scalar, label etc).
- previously relied on presence/absence of command-line options.
Can now explicitly disable individually
- provide shorter constructors for dealing with these types of cases.
Make construction with non-default names for "system" and "constant"
lengthier so there is no ambiguity.
For example,
$ someSolver -info-switch writeOptionalEntries
- note that values changed via the command-line are changed after the
etc/controlDict entries, but *before* any case-local
system/controlDict entries.
However, in many testing cases the command-line options eliminate
the need for such local file modifications.
ENH: cleanup handling of local debug switches in Time
- add as methods directly on simpleObjectRegistry to avoid code
duplication
STYLE: adjust internal naming of ITstream parameters
- for special cases when normal writing is to be completely disabled
and replaced with alternate means (eg, via a function object).
- support "adjustable" as "adjustableRunTime" alias to reduce typing
for writeControl or outputControl
- this can be useful for preloading of libraries, or for utilities
that don't use system/controlDict.
The additional libraries can be specified individually:
myUtil -lib lib1 -lib lib2 -lib lib3
When specified like this, the options add up.
Or as a 'captured' list using OpenFOAM's standard arg list handling:
myUtil -lib '(' lib1 lib2 lib3 ')'
myUtil -lib \( lib1 lib2 lib3 \)
or as single argument list:
myUtil -lib '("lib1" "lib2" "lib3")'
When specified as a single argument, would normally take advantage
of the transparent handling of word vs fileName and omit the string
quotes:
myUtil -lib '(lib1 lib2 lib3)'
ENH: dlOpen error messages now propagated into dlLibraryTable
- this makes the context more relevant and also avoids the previous
annoyance of double warnings (one from the POSIX loader, and one
from dlLibraryTable)
STYLE: mark -noFunctionObjects and -withFunctionObjects as 'advanced'
- reduces clutter. Still visible with -help-full
- the objectRegistry destructor seems to be called too late.
Explicitly clear the objectRegistry within the Time destructor to
ensure that it always happens.
- more dictionary-like methods, enforce keyType::LITERAL for all
lookups to avoid any spurious keyword matching.
- new readEntry, readIfPresent methods
- The get() method replaces the now deprecate lookup() method.
- Deprecate lookupOrFailsafe()
Failsafe behaviour is now an optional parameter for lookupOrDefault,
which makes it easier to tailor behaviour at runtime.
- output of the names is now always flatted without line-breaks.
Thus,
os << flatOutput(someEnumNames.names()) << nl;
os << someEnumNames << nl;
both generate the same output.
- Constructor now uses C-string (const char*) directly instead of
Foam::word in its initializer_list.
- Remove special enum + initializer_list constructor form since
it can create unbounded lookup indices.
- Removd old hasEnum, hasName forms that were provided during initial
transition from NamedEnum.
- Added static_assert on Enum contents to restrict to enum or
integral values. Should not likely be using this class to enumerate
other things since it internally uses an 'int' for its values.
Changed volumeType accordingly to enumerate on its type (enum),
not the class itself.
- use keyType::option enum to consolidate searching options.
These enumeration names should be more intuitive to use
and improve code readability.
Eg, lookupEntry(key, keyType::REGEX);
vs lookupEntry(key, false, true);
or
Eg, lookupEntry(key, keyType::LITERAL_RECURSIVE);
vs lookupEntry(key, true, false);
- new findEntry(), findDict(), findScoped() methods with consolidated
search options for shorter naming and access names more closely
aligned with other components. Behave simliarly to the
methods lookupEntryPtr(), subDictPtr(), lookupScopedEntryPtr(),
respectively. Default search parameters consistent with lookupEntry().
Eg, const entry* e = dict.findEntry(key);
vs const entry* e = dict.lookupEntryPtr(key, false, true);
- added '*' and '->' dereference operators to dictionary searchers.
- avoids compiler ambiguity when virtual methods such as
IOdictionary::read() exist.
- the method was introduced in 1806, and was thus not yet widely used
- relocate some standard functionality to TimePaths to allow a lighter
means of managing time directories without using the entire Time
mechanism.
- optional enableLibs for Time construction (default is on)
and a corresponding argList::noLibs() and "-no-libs" option
STYLE:
- mark Time::outputTime() as deprecated MAY-2016
- use pre-increment for runTime, although there is no difference in
behaviour or performance.
Improvements to existing functionality
--------------------------------------
- MPI is initialised without thread support if it is not needed e.g. uncollated
- Use native c++11 threading; avoids problem with static destruction order.
- etc/cellModels now only read if needed.
- etc/controlDict can now be read from the environment variable FOAM_CONTROLDICT
- Uniform files (e.g. '0/uniform/time') are now read only once on the master only
(with the masterUncollated or collated file handlers)
- collated format writes to 'processorsNNN' instead of 'processors'. The file
format is unchanged.
- Thread buffer and file buffer size are no longer limited to 2Gb.
The global controlDict file contains parameters for file handling. Under some
circumstances, e.g. running in parallel on a system without NFS, the user may
need to set some parameters, e.g. fileHandler, before the global controlDict
file is read from file. To support this, OpenFOAM now allows the global
controlDict to be read as a string set to the FOAM_CONTROLDICT environment
variable.
The FOAM_CONTROLDICT environment variable can be set to the content the global
controlDict file, e.g. from a sh/bash shell:
export FOAM_CONTROLDICT=$(foamDictionary $FOAM_ETC/controlDict)
FOAM_CONTROLDICT can then be passed to mpirun using the -x option, e.g.:
mpirun -np 2 -x FOAM_CONTROLDICT simpleFoam -parallel
Note that while this avoids the need for NFS to read the OpenFOAM configuration
the executable still needs to load shared libraries which must either be copied
locally or available via NFS or equivalent.
New: Multiple IO ranks
----------------------
The masterUncollated and collated fileHandlers can now use multiple ranks for
writing e.g.:
mpirun -np 6 simpleFoam -parallel -ioRanks '(0 3)'
In this example ranks 0 ('processor0') and 3 ('processor3') now handle all the
I/O. Rank 0 handles 0,1,2 and rank 3 handles 3,4,5. The set of IO ranks should always
include 0 as first element and be sorted in increasing order.
The collated fileHandler uses the directory naming processorsNNN_XXX-YYY where
NNN is the total number of processors and XXX and YYY are first and last
processor in the rank, e.g. in above example the directories would be
processors6_0-2
processors6_3-5
and each of the collated files in these contains data of the local ranks
only. The same naming also applies when e.g. running decomposePar:
decomposePar -fileHandler collated -ioRanks '(0 3)'
New: Distributed data
---------------------
The individual root directories can be placed on different hosts with different
paths if necessary. In the current framework it is necessary to specify the
root per slave process but this has been simplified with the option of specifying
the root per host with the -hostRoots command line option:
mpirun -np 6 simpleFoam -parallel -ioRanks '(0 3)' \
-hostRoots '("machineA" "/tmp/" "machineB" "/tmp")'
The hostRoots option is followed by a list of machine name + root directory, the
machine name can contain regular expressions.
New: hostCollated
-----------------
The new hostCollated fileHandler automatically sets the 'ioRanks' according to
the host name with the lowest rank e.g. to run simpleFoam on 6 processors with
ranks 0-2 on machineA and ranks 3-5 on machineB with the machines specified in
the hostfile:
mpirun -np 6 --hostfile hostfile simpleFoam -parallel -fileHandler hostCollated
This is equivalent to
mpirun -np 6 --hostfile hostfile simpleFoam -parallel -fileHandler collated -ioRanks '(0 3)'
This example will write directories:
processors6_0-2/
processors6_3-5/
A typical example would use distributed data e.g. no two nodes, machineA and
machineB, each with three processes:
decomposePar -fileHandler collated -case cavity
# Copy case (constant/*, system/*, processors6/) to master:
rsync -a cavity machineA:/tmp/
# Create root on slave:
ssh machineB mkdir -p /tmp/cavity
# Run
mpirun --hostfile hostfile icoFoam \
-case /tmp/cavity -parallel -fileHandler hostCollated \
-hostRoots '("machineA" "/tmp" "machineB" "/tmp")'
Contributed by Mattijs Janssens
- controlled by the the 'printExecutionFormat' InfoSwitch in
etc/controlDict
// Style for "ExecutionTime = " output
// - 0 = seconds (with trailing 's')
// - 1 = day-hh:mm:ss
ExecutionTime = 112135.2 s ClockTime = 113017 s
ExecutionTime = 1-07:08:55.20 ClockTime = 1-07:23:37
- Callable via the new Time::printExecutionTime() method,
which also helps to reduce clutter in the applications.
Eg,
runTime.printExecutionTime(Info);
vs
Info<< "ExecutionTime = " << runTime.elapsedCpuTime() << " s"
<< " ClockTime = " << runTime.elapsedClockTime() << " s"
<< nl << endl;
--
ENH: return elapsedClockTime() and clockTimeIncrement as double
- previously returned as time_t, which is less portable.
- IOstreamOption class to encapsulate format, compression, version.
This is ordered to avoid internal padding in the structure, which
reduces several bytes of memory overhead for stream objects
and other things using this combination of data.
Byte-sizes:
old IOstream:48 PstreamBuffers:88 Time:928
new IOstream:24 PstreamBuffers:72 Time:904
====
STYLE: remove support for deprecated uncompressed/compressed selectors
In older versions, the system/controlDict used these types of
specifications:
writeCompression uncompressed;
writeCompression compressed;
As of DEC-2009, these were deprecated in favour of using normal switch
names:
writeCompression true;
writeCompression false;
writeCompression on;
writeCompression off;
Now removed these deprecated names and treat like any other unknown
input and issue a warning. Eg,
Unknown compression specifier 'compressed', assuming no compression
====
STYLE: provide Enum of stream format names (ascii, binary)
====
COMP: fixed incorrect IFstream construct in FIREMeshReader
- spurious bool argument (presumably meant as uncompressed) was being
implicitly converted to a versionNumber. Now caught by making
IOstreamOption::versionNumber constructor explicit.
- bad version specifier in changeDictionary
- in many cases can just use lookupOrDefault("key", bool) instead of
lookupOrDefault<bool> or lookupOrDefault<Switch> since reading a
bool from an Istream uses the Switch(Istream&) anyhow
STYLE: relocated Switch string names into file-local scope
- use succincter method names that more closely resemble dictionary
and HashTable method names. This improves method name consistency
between classes and also requires less typing effort:
args.found(optName) vs. args.optionFound(optName)
args.readIfPresent(..) vs. args.optionReadIfPresent(..)
...
args.opt<scalar>(optName) vs. args.optionRead<scalar>(optName)
args.read<scalar>(index) vs. args.argRead<scalar>(index)
- the older method names forms have been retained for code compatibility,
but are now deprecated
- expose the names of write and stopAt controls for reuse elsewhere and
provide a stopAtControls enum for 'unknown'
- track the requested number of sub-cycles (was previously a bool)
Original commit message:
------------------------
Parallel IO: New collated file format
When an OpenFOAM simulation runs in parallel, the data for decomposed fields and
mesh(es) has historically been stored in multiple files within separate
directories for each processor. Processor directories are named 'processorN',
where N is the processor number.
This commit introduces an alternative "collated" file format where the data for
each decomposed field (and mesh) is collated into a single file, which is
written and read on the master processor. The files are stored in a single
directory named 'processors'.
The new format produces significantly fewer files - one per field, instead of N
per field. For large parallel cases, this avoids the restriction on the number
of open files imposed by the operating system limits.
The file writing can be threaded allowing the simulation to continue running
while the data is being written to file. NFS (Network File System) is not
needed when using the the collated format and additionally, there is an option
to run without NFS with the original uncollated approach, known as
"masterUncollated".
The controls for the file handling are in the OptimisationSwitches of
etc/controlDict:
OptimisationSwitches
{
...
//- Parallel IO file handler
// uncollated (default), collated or masterUncollated
fileHandler uncollated;
//- collated: thread buffer size for queued file writes.
// If set to 0 or not sufficient for the file size threading is not used.
// Default: 2e9
maxThreadFileBufferSize 2e9;
//- masterUncollated: non-blocking buffer size.
// If the file exceeds this buffer size scheduled transfer is used.
// Default: 2e9
maxMasterFileBufferSize 2e9;
}
When using the collated file handling, memory is allocated for the data in the
thread. maxThreadFileBufferSize sets the maximum size of memory in bytes that
is allocated. If the data exceeds this size, the write does not use threading.
When using the masterUncollated file handling, non-blocking MPI communication
requires a sufficiently large memory buffer on the master node.
maxMasterFileBufferSize sets the maximum size in bytes of the buffer. If the
data exceeds this size, the system uses scheduled communication.
The installation defaults for the fileHandler choice, maxThreadFileBufferSize
and maxMasterFileBufferSize (set in etc/controlDict) can be over-ridden within
the case controlDict file, like other parameters. Additionally the fileHandler
can be set by:
- the "-fileHandler" command line argument;
- a FOAM_FILEHANDLER environment variable.
A foamFormatConvert utility allows users to convert files between the collated
and uncollated formats, e.g.
mpirun -np 2 foamFormatConvert -parallel -fileHandler uncollated
An example case demonstrating the file handling methods is provided in:
$FOAM_TUTORIALS/IO/fileHandling
The work was undertaken by Mattijs Janssens, in collaboration with Henry Weller.
