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2.3 The Command Line
FEBio is started from a shell window (or the command prompt in Windows). The command line is the same for all platforms:
febio [-o1 [name1] | -o2 [name2] | ... ]
Where -o1, -o2 are options and name1, name2, ... are filenames. The different options (of which most are optional) are given by the following list:
-i name of input file
-r restart file name
-g debug flag
-p plot file name
-o log file name
-s material parameter optimization control file
-d diagnostic input file
-dump Set restart option and optional dump file name
-nosplash don't show the welcome screen
-config configuration filename
-noconfig don't use the configuration file
-break set a break point
-import load a plugin
A more detailed description of these options follows.
-i The -i option is used to specify the name of the input file. The input file is expected to follow the format specifications as described in Chapter 3↓.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb
This is the most common way to start a FEBio run. However, FEBio allows the omission of the -i when only a filename is given.
> febio input.feb
On Windows, this allows for starting FEBio by double-clicking on an input file (assuming you have chosen FEBio as the default program to open .feb files). Note that if additional options are specified on the command line the -i must be present.
-r The -r option allows you to restart a previous analysis. The filename that must follow this option is a FEBio restart input file or a dump file. The restart input file and dump file are described in more detail in 2.8.4↓. The -i and -r options are mutually exclusive; only one of them may appear on the command line.
Example:
> febio -r file.feb
-g The –g option runs FEBio in debug mode. See Section 2.8.2↓ for more information on running FEBio in debug mode.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –g
-p The –p option allows the user to specify the name of the plot file. The plot file is a binary file that contains the main results of the analysis. FEBio usually provides a default name for this file; however, the user can override the default name using this option. See Section 2.7↓ for more details on the output files generated by FEBio.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –p out.plt
-o The –o option allows the user to set the name of the log file. The log file will contain a record of the screen output that was generated during a run. FEBio usually provides a default name for this file (see Section 2.7↓), but the user can override it with this command line option.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –o out.log
-nosplash When the –nosplash command is entered on the command line, FEBio will not print the welcome message to the screen. This is useful when calling FEBio from another application and when the user wishes to suppress any screen output from FEBio. Other options for suppressing output can be set in the control section of the FEBio input file (see Section 3.3.1↓).
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –nosplash
-silent When the –silence option is specified on the command line, FEBio will not generate any output to the screen. Unless explicitly instructed not to, FEBio will still create a log file which will have the convergence information.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –silent
-config
-noconfig As of version 1.2, FEBio uses a configuration file to store platform specific settings. Usually FEBio assumes that the location for this configuration file is the same as the executable. However, the user can specify a different location and filename using the –config command line option. If the user does not have a configuration file or does not wish to use one, this can be specified using the –noconfig option. More details on the configuration file can be found in Section 2.5↓ and Chapter 9↓.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –cnf C: path to febio.xml.
-s This option instructs FEBio to run a material parameter optimization on the specified input file. The optimization module is described in detail in Chapter 7↓. The –s option is followed by the optimization control file which contains among other things the parameters that need to be optimized. Note that the restart feature does not work with the optimization module.
Example:
> febio –i file.feb –s control.feb
-d This option will run a FEBio diagnostics. A diagnostic is a special type of test that can be used to verify an implementation. For example, the tangent diagnostic allows users to check the consistency between the material's stress and tangent implementations.
Example:
> febio –d diagnostic.feb
-dump It is possible to restart a previous run using the restart capability in FEBio. This is useful when a run terminates unexpectedly. If that happens, the user can restart the analysis from the last converged timestep. Before this feature can be used, the user must request the creation of a dump file. This file will store all the information that FEBio will need to restart the analysis. FEBio will usually provide a default name for the dump file, but the –dump command line option allows the user to override the default name for the dump file. See Section 2.8.4↓ and Chapter 5↓ for more details on how to use the restart feature.
Example:
> febio -i input.feb –dump out.dmp
-break With this option a break point can be set which sets a time point at which FEBio will interrupt the run and show the FEBio prompt. The following example sets a break point at time 1.0. FEBio will interrupt the run after the time step at time 1.0 is reached (i.e. has converged). (See section 2.8.3↓ for more informations on setting break points.)
Example:
> febio –i file.feb –break 1.0
-import This command will load the plugin that is specified following this command line option. Although it is more convienient to list plugins in the FEBio configuration file, this option allows users to load a plugin from the command line, if such a need would arise.
Example:
> febio –import myplugin.dll