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Running run_survey

Description

Everything is now in place to process these data. run_survey can be run from any location on the system because command-line arguments uniquely identify the directory to be processed. The required command-line arguments are, in this order:

  1. base of the processing directory tree
  2. the year of the data files (and part of the work directory name)
  3. the doy of the data files (and part of the work directory name)

Other command-line arguments are recognized and described in this documentation. These will not be discussed in this basic tutorial.

Recall that the purpose of run_survey is standard, hands-off processing. The run_survey script was designed for batch processing such as initiation by a crontab or a block of several day intiated sequentially by a simple script.

Tutorial

At the end of the last tutorial, the current directory was ~/tutorial/files.

run_survey can be initiated from any location but, because no further actions are required in the files subdirectory, change to the base of the processing tree.
cd ..
Start run_survey. Recall that the assumption in this tutorial that the processing directory tree was created in the users home directory. If this not the case, make the appropriate substitution. The dates and times shown here will, of course, be different.
run_survey ~/tutorial 96 360
run_survey: Station info file "../files/site_info" not found - warning 97/02/02 13:34:29
run_survey: Creating elv.plt using mergedb @ 97/02/02 13:34:34
run_survey: Designing network using locgen @ 97/02/02 13:35:12
run_survey: Creating databases using mergedb @ 97/02/02 13:35:17
run_survey: Editing databases using editdb @ 97/02/02 13:36:17
run_survey: Preliminary baseline estimation @ 97/02/02 13:36:36
run_survey: Normal termination @ 97/02/02 13:40:28

Notes

Messages from run_survey which appear on the screen are also stored in the run_msg file in the work directory. The run_msg file is particularly valuable in tracking multiple batch jobs.

run_survey attempts to trap all errors and exit gracefully. If and error does occur, a message and time tag are printed to the screen and the run_msg file. The work directory is left in the same state as when the the error occurred. One can then go into the work directory, manually run the indicated program (or script) and begin debugging the fault.

Software development has always kept an eye towards the PC environment. To this end, the eight character name + dot + three character extension file naming convention is generally kept. In turn, the twelve character file name restriction implies that files, which could be identified most clearly by using the four character site ID's, must use a different naming convention. This "renaming" convention is coded into and enforced by the locgen program and is for the purpose of file naming only. The convention is best defined by its implimentation.

Explicitly knowing this convention is not required. locgen lists the baseline pairs with their ID's in its summary file, elv.loc. For convenience, run_survey duplicates this list in the bls file.

The working directory, ~/tutorial/96_360, has be modified. The files and subdirectories will be listed below with brief descriptions of their purpose.

The directory structure now looks like:

      data  inpt  plts
          \   |   /
            96_360         files

            ------         -----

               \_____________/

                  tutorial

                      |

                     ---

                      ~

The purposes of the three new subdiretories and the files they contain are:


The work directory, 96_360 in this example, now has the pages processing files (binary files will be explicity identified; all other files are ASCII and, therefore, viewable with an editor):


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bl_6.html
March 4, 1999
Steve Hilla