The command line interface¶
PyTornado provides a command line tool which can be used to start a VLM analysis. The executable is called pytornado
. If you simply run pytornado
in a terminal without any arguments, a simple help page will be printed.
usage: pytornado 0.5.4 [-h]
[-r <Settings file> | --cpacs2json <CPACS file> | --make-example | --list-example-from-db | --make-example-from-db <Aircraft name>]
[-v | -d | -q] [-c | --clean-only]
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-r <Settings file>, --run <Settings file>
Settings file (entry point for pytornado)
--cpacs2json <CPACS file>
Convert a CPACS file to native JSON format
--make-example Generate a minimal working example
--list-example-from-db, --ldb
List example aircraft in the database
--make-example-from-db <Aircraft name>, --mdb <Aircraft name>
Pick an aircraft from the database and generate a
project directory
-v, --verbose
-d, --debug
-q, --quiet
-c, --clean remove old project files
--clean-only clean and exit
Pointing to a settings file (–run)
Perhaps the most important argument is --run
(or short -r
). This argument must be followed by a file path to the PyTornado settings file. Notice that you used this argument in the first tutorial (Getting started) where the settings file was located at settings/template.json
.
pytornado --run settings/template.json
Hint
You can provide the settings file path as any relative or absolute file path. PyTornado will automatically detect the project directory. Of course, the other project subdirectories including the aircraft and state files must exist in a structure described in Project directory.
Logging
Logging information can be printed to the terminal screen and written to a log file. Arguments determine the amount of printed information. The argument -debug
or --d
will print the most amount of information, -verbose
or --v
will ignore less relevant information and -quiet
or --q
will only print errors. By default, PyTornado is quiet.
Note
Error messages will always be printed (even in quiet mode).
Cleaning up previous result files
Sometimes, it can be useful to remove result files from previous analyses. Instead of removing files by hand, pytornado
provides arguments to clean up from previous analyses. If you pass the flag --clean
or -c
result files from all previous analyses will be removed before a new VLM analysis is started. Note that only files in the directories _results and _plots are affected.
If you do not want to start a new analysis you can use --clean-only
which will remove old result files but not invoke a new VLM analysis.
Hint
Note that you can combine several arguments like this:
pytornado -cvr settings/template.json
PyTornado will first clean up the _results and _plots directories (if there are files from previous analyses) and then a VLM will be started in verbose mode.
Creating a template project
If you start with a new project, PyTornado allows you to easily generate a clean project directory including minimalistic working example (see also Getting started).
pytornado --make-example
Converting CPACS to JSON
PyTornado’s native JSON format has a simpler and flatter structure than CPACS. Sometimes, it may be more convenient to edit the aircraft definition using the JSON format rather than CPACS. A CPACS file can easily be converted to JSON. Change into a project directory (see Project directory) with a CPACS file in the aircraft subdirectory. Now you may run:
pytornado --cpacs2json aircraft/CPACS_file.xml
The CPACS file aircraft/CPACS_file.xml
will be loaded and a new file aircraft/CPACS_file.json
will be created. Notice that the file extension of the new file is .json
.
Warning
An existing file aircraft/CPACS_file.json
will be overwritten.
To use the new JSON file instead of CPACS you will have to edit your main settings file (Settings file).
General notes
Note
Besides the command line interface PyTornado also provides a Python API through which analyses can be setup.