vle command line

To get access to this application :

• on Linux/Unix, simply type the command vle --help in a terminal. The CLI VLE has to be into the PATH.
• on Windows, open a command interpreter (application cmd.exe) and type the absolute path to the VLE binary location e.g.: c:\vle-2.0\bin\vle-2.0 --help. By default VLE is not set into the default PATH environment variable, otherwise the command vle --help should work.

The package mode

The package mode of vle application vle -P mypackage is used to manipulate packages. A typical use case of these commands is :

First you can generate a template package in the current directory with vle -P mypackage create. Note that you can use any name for your package, if it is not already used. To see the package names that are already used, use the command vle --list. The directory created has the structure detailed in the packages page. Then you could configure and build the package vle -P mypackage configure build. The configure command actually calls cmake in order to initiate the compilation process. A directory mypackage/buildvle is then created. The build command will call make all and make install. The binaries are installed into the [VLE_HOME](../vle- home): more precisely into VLE_HOME/pkgs-2.0/mypackage. Note that you can customize how vle calls cmake and make via the commands configure and build by editing the vle.conf file.

Then you can start modelling (creating/modifying VPZ and cpp files) by using the gvle application. Before simulation, you have to call compilation processes (commands configure and build).

You can now simulate your models calling vle -P mypackage mymodel.vpz. It will call the simulation of the model VLE_HOME/pkgs-2.0/mypackage/exp/mymodel.vpz. The output files (if there are some) are produced into the current directory. If your model contains an experiment plan (many combinations of inputs) and you want to perform simulation in parallel, you can use the commands --manager and --processor. The first one declares that you will simulate all the input combinations, the second is used to give the number of threads to use for parallel simulations. Eg.:

vle -P --manager --processor=5 -P mypackage mymodel.vpz

If you want to remove the binaries of your application you can use vle -P mypackage clean or vle -P mypackage rclean. The first one will remove the directory mypackage/buildvle. The second one will remove the directory VLE_HOME/pkgs-2.0/mypackage. If you prefer, you can instead use your file explorer directly in order to remove those directories.

If you want to produce a compressed archive of your package in order to share it with others, you can call the command vle -P mypackage package.

The verbose mode

The verbose mode of vle application vle -V verbosity -P mypackage mymodel.vpz is used to trace the simulator at run time. A typical use case of these commands is :

vle -V 7 -P mypackage mymodel.vpz

where you want to get as much as possible informations during the simulation.

Verbosity levels are between 0 and 7, and the default is 3

The level semantic is:

• 0 system is unusable
• 1 action must be taken immediately
• 2 critial conditions
• 3 error conditions
• 4 warning conditions
• 5 normal, but significant, condition
• 6 informational message
• 7 debug-level message

Warning, in order to have the debug service available, make sure that vle is built with the debug option for example like this (Unix case):

cd vle-your_release
mkdir build && cd build
export QT_SELECT=qt5

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

make -j4
make install
make test

The remote mode

The remote mode of vle application vle --remote is used to download or install packages that are available in distributions. One can declare new remote distributions by adding remote URL into the vle.conf file . Be very careful to add only URLs you trust in. By default, there is the VLE distribution. A typical use case of these commands is:

First you can update the state of your local packages with:

vle -R update

This command modifies the pkgs-2.0/local.pkg and pkgs-2.0/remote.pkg located into the VLE_HOME. The first one lists the packages installed on your computer, the second lists the packages available for installation. They have the same format as the packages.pkg file of distribution. The update command will also gives the packages for which there are new updates on the remote distributions.

Then you can search for a particular remote package to install. For example, to search for the package vle.output distributed by the VLE distribution, you can use the command (eg. on windows):

C:\>c:\vle-2.0\bin\vle -R search vle.output
Found remote packages:
vle.output       from http://www.vle-project.org/pub/2.0

The command gives the packages that have been found and the URL where they are stored.

Finally you can install the package with the command:

vle -R install vle.output

This will download into a temporary directory the package source and launch the compilation processes described into the package mode.

The config mode

The configuration mode vle -C is a feature that allows you to update values of the vle.conf file. It is provided so that users do not edit the vle-2.0.conf file directly.