<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
Hi,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have put more thoughts around this.</div>
<div>My main motivation for using petscbag is PetscBagView, which allows me to automatically generate useful (?) informations and in particular make sure that all options are properly parsed. I am increasingly thinking that overheard of creating and registering
the bag, overloading PetscBagGetData etc in Fortran is not worth it. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I can think of the following options</div>
<div>1. Use PetscOptionsBegin/End and PetscOptionsXXX to initialize each derived type at creation and implement a viewer myself.</div>
<div>The main overhead will be replicating the the logic that is already in PETSc for when to display the help </div>
<div>2. Make the output of PetscOptionsView more comprehensive (more that out -help), and make a heavy use of PetscOptions objects (either use a global one for user options and another one for PETSc options, or assign one to each user implemented objects.
I am having a hard time fully understanding the hierarchy of concepts related to PetscOptions and in particular the links between PetscOptions and PetscOptionsItems.</div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Any suggestions?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards,</div>
<div>Blaise</div>
<div><br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Jul 22, 2025, at 2:14 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith@petsc.dev> wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;"> Caution:
External email.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
<br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;"> Hm,
what is the advantage of dropping bags? Maybe we just need to improve bags to make them better for you.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
<br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
<blockquote type="cite" style="font-family: FiraCode-Regular; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">
On Jul 22, 2025, at 10:23 AM, Blaise Bourdin <<a href="mailto:bourdin@mcmaster.ca">bourdin@mcmaster.ca</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
Hi,<br>
<br>
My (Fortran) code currently makes heavy use of PetscBag to store parameters and options in fortran derived types. I would like to simplify it by getting rid of these bags and simply querying the PETSc options database as needed.<br>
<br>
One nice thing about PetscBags, though, is that I can easily display help messages related to a specific family of options by calling PetscBagView and get nicely formatted output like this:<br>
<br>
Registering cell set 1 prefix: cs0001_<br>
PetscBag Object: Cell set 1 (cs0001_) HeatXferCellSetOptions MEF90 Heat transfer Cell Set options<br>
Flux = 0. ; [J.s^(-1).m^(-3) / J.s^(-1).m^(-2)] (f): Internal / applied heat flux<br>
TemperatureBC = FALSE; Temperature has Dirichlet boundary Condition (Y/N)<br>
boundaryTemperature = 0. [K] (); Temperature boundary value<br>
advectionVector = 0. 0. 0. ; [m.s^(-1)] (V): advection vector<br>
<br>
even when -help is not passed in the command line, so that these messages are not drowned in Vec, SNES etc help messages.<br>
<br>
Is there an easy way to achieve the same thing when using PetscOptionsXXX or PetscOptionsGetXXX?<br>
<br>
Ideally, I’d like to be able to do <progName> -mef90_help and display only the help messages associated to the calls to PetscOptionsXXX or PetscOptionsGetXXX I made and have been executed. Does that make sense?<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Blaise<br>
<br>
—<br>
Canada Research Chair in Mathematical and Computational Aspects of Solid Mechanics (Tier 1)<br>
Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics<br>
Hamilton Hall room 409A, McMaster University<br>
1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada<br>
<a href="https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.math.mcmaster.ca/bourdin__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!fgK0I4XQdmA4YFzlulAe0gnPsrtmmt_KjqXJy9r3CefbaPNCHyAQIZFpe-XT4H2K0zjYzsxw7ZuSQtzS4WfS1ZUg$">https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.math.mcmaster.ca/bourdin__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!fgK0I4XQdmA4YFzlulAe0gnPsrtmmt_KjqXJy9r3CefbaPNCHyAQIZFpe-XT4H2K0zjYzsxw7ZuSQtzS4WfS1ZUg$</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> |
+1 (905) 525 9140 ext. 27243</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">
<div>— <br>
Canada Research Chair in Mathematical and Computational Aspects of Solid Mechanics (Tier 1)</div>
<div>Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics<br>
Hamilton Hall room 409A, McMaster University<br>
1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada <br>
<a href="https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.math.mcmaster.ca/bourdin__;!!G_uCfscf7eWS!bY3sRMk41SDqkTPvcZtJ1mSdDKQmdVNpP4d8j0RVoQ0TgeGpW5R5yh5jFJjjRjwWHuczcDB60PkYgkiy8yQmRW5A$">https://www.math.mcmaster.ca/bourdin</a> | +1 (905) 525 9140 ext. 27243</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</body>
</html>