Shortcuts and command completion

It is recommended before running code_saturne to define an alias to the code_saturne script (see [sec_prg_environement]), for example:

alias cs='${install_prefix}/bin/code_saturne'

where '${install_prefix} is the base directory where code_saturne and its components have been installed.

This setting can be defined in the user's .bashrc,.bash_alias, or equivalent files depending on the environment. This step may be skipped if '${install_prefix} is in a standard location (such as /usr or /usr/local), or if the code is already available as an environment module.

When using the bash shell, a completion file may be sourced so as to allow for syntax auto-completion:

source ${install_prefix}/etc/bash_completion.d/code_saturne'.

This can alse be defined in the user's .bashrc file.

When using multiple versions of the code, different aliases should be used for each version.

Independently of these settings, using the absolute path to the code_saturne command is always possible.

For more advanced settings, a configuration file may be used.

Configuration file

A configuration file for code_saturne is available in ${install_prefix}/etc. This file can be useful as a post-install step for computing environments using a batch system, for separate front-end and compute systems (such as some Cray systems), or for coupling with Syrthes (see the installation documentation for more details).

A user may define a local configuration, by copying ${install_prefix}/etc/code_saturne.cfg (if present) or ${install_prefix}/etc/code_saturne.cfg.template to $HOME/.code_saturne.cfg, then uncomment and define the applicable sections.

Note that this user configuration file's settings usually apply to all installed code_saturne versions, so only the necessary options should be defined.

Two options in the .code_saturne.cfg file can be useful for the user:

Set the optional temporary directory (see case_structure_scratchdir) for more details on the temporary execution directory).
Set the mesh database directory: it is possible to indicate a path where meshes are stored. In this case, the GUI will propose this directory automatically for mesh selection. Without the GUI, it is then possible to fill in the cs_user_scripts.py file (see [sec_prg_stepbystepcalculation) with the name of the desired mesh of the database directory and the code will find it automatically (be careful if you have the same name for a mesh in the database directory and in the MESH directory: the mesh in MESH will be used).