Add another task

Let’s add another task named t2. You will need to modify the suite definition file and add a new script.

You must also create a file t2.ecf in $HOME/course/test. Simply copy t1.ecf.

First modify the suite definition

Text

It is good practice to suspend your suite before you reload any part of it. In ecFlowUI right click on the suite and select “Suspend”. Once you made your change(specified below) you can right click on the suite and “Resume” it.

# Definition of the suite test
suite test
   edit ECF_HOME "$HOME/course"  # replace '$HOME' with the path to your home directory
   task t1
   task t2
endsuite

Note

As before replace $HOME with the real path to your home directory.

Then you must load the file again:

ecflow_client --load test.def

Warning

This will fail because the suite is already loaded.

Because the suite is already defined, you need to delete and reload it first:

ecflow_client --delete=_all_
ecflow_client --load=test.def

Then restart the suite:

ecflow_client --begin=test

Rather than deleting, loading and beginning the suite every time you can replace all or part of the suite for example to replace whole suite.

ecflow_client --replace /test test.def

or to replace part of the suite:

ecflow_client --replace /test/t2 test.def

Python

To delete the suite definition, reload and begin using the Python API: First update test.py

Listing 14 $HOME/course/test.py
import os
from ecflow import Defs, Suite, Task, Edit

print("Creating suite definition")
home = os.path.join(os.getenv("HOME"), "course")
defs = Defs(Suite("test", Edit(ECF_HOME=home), Task("t1"), Task("t2")))
print(defs)

print("Checking job creation: .ecf -> .job0")
print(defs.check_job_creation())

print("Saving definition to file 'test.def'")
defs.save_as_defs("test.def")

To delete all suites in the server and reload modified test.def, we could update client.py

Listing 15 $HOME/course/client.py
import ecflow

print("Client -> Server: delete, then load a new definition")
try:
    ci = ecflow.Client()
    ci.delete_all()  # clear out the server
    ci.load("test.def")  # load the definition into the server
    ci.begin_suite("test")  # start the suite
except RuntimeError as e:
    print("Failed:", e)

Rather than deleting, loading and beginning the suite every time you can replace all or part of the suite. (i.e. to replace the whole suite see below)

Additionally we do not want the suite to start straight away. This can be done by suspending the suite in ecflow_ui before reloading. However we will need to remember to do this, each time. To get round this we will suspend the suite use the Python API:

Modify client.py with:

Listing 16 $HOME/course/client.py
import ecflow

print("Client -> Server: replacing suite '/test' in the server, with a new definition")
try:
    ci = ecflow.Client()
    ci.suspend("/test")  # so that we can resume manually in ecflow_ui
    ci.replace(
        "/test", "test.def"
    )  # replace suite /test with suite of same name in test.def
except RuntimeError as e:
    print("Failed:", e)

Note

For brevity the examples that follow, will not show the loading of the suite.

What to do

  1. Suspend the suite using ecFlowUI or via python using ecflow.Client.suspend

  2. Create the new task

  3. Create t2.ecf by copying from t1.ecf

  4. Update python scripts test.py and client.py or test.def

  5. Replace the suite. For Python use:

    python3 test.py or ./test.py
    python3 client.py or ./client.py

    For text use: ecflow_client --replace=/test test.def

  6. Resume the the suite using ecFlowUI

  7. In ecFlowUI, watch the two task running. They should run at the same time