Chapter 3: Accessing the Mechanical APDL Database

This chapter describes how you can retrieve information in the Mechanical APDL database (or store information in the database) by linking subroutines you create into the Mechanical APDL program.

You can use the database access routines with any of the user-programmable features. For example, you can create your own Mechanical APDL commands and use them to execute database access routines (or have a database access routine call a user-defined command).

Inputs and Outputs for Database Access Routines

The descriptions of the database access routines or functions within this chapter describe both the input arguments and output arguments. Argument information includes the argument's type, size and intent.

  • Argument type is one of the following:

    int - integer (4-byte)
    long - integer (8-byte)
    dp - double precision
    log - logical
    chr - character
    comp - double precision complex
  • Argument size is one of the following:

    sc - scalar variable
    ar(n) - array variable of length n
    func - functional return value
  • Argument intent is one of the following:

    in - input argument
    out - output argument
    inout - both an input and an output argument

Types of Database Access Routines

The rest of this chapter describes the functions and subroutines available for accessing information in the Mechanical APDL database. The function and subroutine descriptions are grouped into the following sections.