Defining the first task

Next, we need to write the ecf script for the task t1.

By default ecFlow expects files to be in a directory structure below ECF_HOME that reflect the hierarchy of the suites. The task t1 being in the suite test, the ecf script for the task t1 must be in a sub-directory test.

In ECF_HOME, create a directory test:
```
mkdir test
```

In test, create a file t1.ecf with the following contents:

Listing 5 $HOME/course/test/t1.ecf

%include "../head.h"
echo "I am part of a suite that lives in %ECF_HOME%"
%include "../tail.h"

Job creation

Before submitting the task, the server will transform the ecf script to a job file.

This process is known as job creation.
This involves locating the ecf script on disk, and then pre-processing the directives.
This process includes performing variable substitution.
This will create a file with a ‘.job’ extension.
This is the script that ecflow_server will submit to your system.

In our case:

%include “../head.h” will be substituted by the content of the file head.h.

Note that the file name is given relatively to the file t1.ecf, i.e. in the directory above the one containing t1.ecf
%ECF_HOME% will be substituted by the value of the variable ECF_HOME
%include “../tail.h” will be substituted by the content of the file tail.h

What to do:

Create the ecf script t1.ecf in $HOME/course/test directory