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Output Folder

By default, all recorders record files and store the data under the initial current working directory. The initial current working directory is the working directory where the main program is executed. Note that here initial is emphasized given the fact that users can use pwd command to change the current working directory.

Internally, the output folder is managed by an independent path that is initialised to the current working directory when starting the program.

What if we want to manage the output folder separately to better organise the recorded data? It is possible to do so by using the output_folder attribute.

Syntax

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# check current output folder
peek output_folder

# change output folder
set output_folder (1)
# (1) string, absolute/relative path to the output folder

A few points to note:

  1. The program tries to create the given output folder it does not exist. The creation itself may fail. In case of any failure, the output folder is not changed.
  2. The output folder can be either absolute or relative (to current output folder).
  3. A special token $pwd is available to set the output folder to the current working directory, which may have been changed manually.

Example

The following are some examples to demonstrate the usage of the output_folder attribute.

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# on entering, pwd and output_folder are set to the current working directory
suanPan ~<> pwd
/home/theodore/Demo
suanPan ~<> peek output_folder
/home/theodore/Demo
suanPan ~<> pwd ..
# change pwd does not affect output_folder
suanPan ~<> pwd
/home/theodore
suanPan ~<> peek output_folder
/home/theodore/Demo
# change output_folder, result-u folder will be created
suanPan ~<> set output_folder result-u
/home/theodore/Demo/result-u
# change to another folder, result-f folder will be created
suanPan ~<> set output_folder ../result-f
/home/theodore/Demo/result-f
suanPan ~<> peek output_folder 
/home/theodore/Demo/result-f
# change to pwd, which has been changed previously
suanPan ~<> set output_folder $pwd
/home/theodore
# change pwd and then set output_folder to pwd
suanPan ~<> pwd Demo
suanPan ~<> set output_folder $pwd
/home/theodore/Demo
# the following two folders are created by setting output_folder
suanPan ~<> terminal ls
result-f  result-u
suanPan ~<> exit

Control Output Folder For Recorders

The output_folder attribute is a global attribute that will be accessed by recorders when the save command is invoked. This means it is possible to set different folders for different recorders prior to save the data. The following is a simple example that shows how to store displacement and resistance data in different folders.

The example model is an elastic cantilever beam with a point load at the free end.

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node 1 0 0
node 2 1 0

material Elastic1D 1 10 1E-4
section Rectangle2D 1 12 1 1
element B21 1 1 2 1 6 1

fix 1 P 1
cload 1 0 10 2 2

plainrecorder 1 Node U 1 2
plainrecorder 2 Node RF 1 2

step static 1 1
set ini_step_size .1
set fixed_step_size true

analyze

# when saving, change the output folder to result-u for displacement recorder
set output_folder result-u
save recorder 1
# change the output folder to result-f for resistance recorder
set output_folder ../result-f
save recorder 2

exit

Now when it is executed, two folders are created under the current working directory. For brevity, the np flag is used to suppress the output to screen.

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$ tree
.
└── B21.sp

0 directories, 1 file
$ suanpan -np -f ./B21.sp 
$ tree
.
├── B21.sp
├── result-f
│         ├── R2-RF1.txt
│         └── R2-RF2.txt
└── result-u
    ├── R1-U1.txt
    └── R1-U2.txt

2 directories, 5 files