Chapter 19: Line Interface Mode

This chapter contains information on how to perform typical user actions (loading, printing, and so on), create graphical objects, and perform quantitative calculations when running CFD-Post in Line Interface mode.

All of the functionality of CFD-Post can be accessed when running in Line Interface mode. In Line Interface mode, you are simply entering the commands that would otherwise be issued by the user interface. A viewer is provided in a separate window that will show the geometry and the objects that are created on the command line.

To run in Line Interface mode:

  • Windows: Execute the command <CFXROOT>\bin\cfdpost -line (or <CFDPOSTROOT>\bin\cfdpost -line) at the Command Prompt (omitting the -line option will start the user interface mode).

    You might want to change the size of the Command Prompt window to view the output from commands such as getstate. This can be done by entering mode con lines=X at the command prompt before entering CFD-Post, where X is the number of lines to display in the window. You may choose a large number of lines if you want to be able to see all the output from a session (a scroll bar will appear in the Command Prompt window). Note that once inside CFD-Post, filepaths should contain forward slashes.

  • UNIX: Execute the command <CFXROOT>/bin/cfdpost -line (or <CFDPOSTROOT>/bin/cfdpost -line) at the command prompt (omitting the -line option will start the user interface mode).

In CFD-Post Line Interface mode, all commands are assumed to be actions, the > symbol required in the Command Editor dialog box is not needed. To call up a list of valid commands, type help at the command prompt.

All of the functionality available from the Command Editor dialog box in the user interface is available in Line Interface mode by typing enterccl or e at the command prompt. When in e mode, you can enter any set of valid CCL commands. The commands are not processed until you leave e mode by typing .e. You can cancel e mode without processing the commands by typing .c. For details, see Command Editor.

An explanation and list of command actions are available. For details, see Overview of Command Actions. (The action commands shown in this link are preceded by a > symbol. This should be omitted when entering action commands at the command prompt.)

You can create objects by entering the CCL definition of the object when in e mode, or by reading the object definition from a session or state file. For details, see File Operations from the Command Editor Dialog Box.

In summary, Line Interface mode differs from the Command Editor dialog box because Line Interface action commands are not preceded by a > symbol. In the same way, when entering lines of CCL or Power Syntax, e must be typed (whereas this is not required in the Command Editor dialog box). It should be noted that these are the only principal differences, and all commands that work for the Command Editor dialog box will also work in Line Interface mode, providing the correct syntax is used.