[MOAB-dev] r1631 - MOAB/trunk

[kraftche at mcs.anl.gov]

Author: kraftche
Date: 2008-03-03 12:10:57 -0600 (Mon, 03 Mar 2008)
New Revision: 1631

Added:
   MOAB/trunk/README.IO
Log:
This was supposed to be checked in back when the "options" parameter was added to the file I/O functions.  Update it for recent changes and check it in.

Added: MOAB/trunk/README.IO
===================================================================
--- MOAB/trunk/README.IO	                        (rev 0)
+++ MOAB/trunk/README.IO	2008-03-03 18:10:57 UTC (rev 1631)
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+This document describes file formats supported by MOAB and options
+controlling file input and output.
+
+
+Supported File Formats
+----------------------
+
+Some of the file formats listed below may not be supported by a particular
+build of MOAB depending on the availability of external libraries.  An 
+up-to-date list of file formats supported in a particular build of MOAB
+can be obtained programatically using the MBReaderWriterSet API or as 
+a simple list using the '-l' option of the mbconvert utility.
+
+Format              Name    Read         Write   File name suffixes
+------------------  ------  ------------ ------  --------------------
+MOAB native         MOAB    yes          yes     h5m mhdf
+Exodus II           EXODUS  yes          yes     exo exoII exo2 g gen
+Kitware VTK         VTK     up to v3.0   v3.0    vtk
+Cubit               CUBIT   yes          no      cub
+SLAC                SLAC    no           yes     slac
+GMV                 GMV     no           yes     gmv
+Ansys               ANSYS   no           yes     ans
+Gmsh                GMSH    v1.0, v2.0   v2.0    msh gmsh
+Stereo Lithography  STL     yes          yes     stl
+
+Any of the values from the 'Name' column may be passed as an option
+to the file IO methods to request a particular file.  If no file 
+format is specified, the default is to choose the write format using
+the file extension and to try all file readers until one succeeds.
+
+
+---------------
+File IO Options
+---------------
+
+An options list as passed to MOAB file IO routines is a single C-style
+string containing the concatenation of a list of string options, were
+individual options are separated by a designated separator character.
+The default separator character is a semicolon (;).  To specify an alternate
+separator character, begin the options string with a semicolon followed
+by the desired separator.  Options are not case sensitive.
+
+
+---------------
+Common Options
+---------------
+
+  PRECISION=<N>
+
+Specify the precision to use when writing float and double values
+(such as node coordinates) to text-based file formats.
+
+
+  CREATE
+  
+Do not overwrite existing file.
+
+-------------------
+Parallel IO Options
+-------------------
+
+MOAB must be built with parallel support enabled before these options
+can be used.  
+
+Parallel Read Options:
+----------------------
+
+  PARALLEL={NONE|BCAST|BCAST_DELETE|READ_DELETE|READ_PARALLEL|FORMAT}
+
+Set parallel read mode.  Options are:
+  - NONE  - force serial read/write on each processor (default)
+  - BCAST - read on one processor and broadcast a copy to all others
+  - BCAST_DELETE - ?
+  - READ_DELETE - read file on all processors and partition by deleting
+                  mesh from non-local partitions.
+  - READ_PARALLEL - ?
+  - FORMAT- use format-specific parallel IO capabilities, if available
+
+  
+  PARTITION
+  PARTITION=<tag_name>
+
+Specify that mesh should be partitioned using partition IDs stored
+in a tag.  If the tag name is not specified, the default ("PARTITION")
+is used.
+
+  PARTITION_VALS=<int_list>
+
+Specify, for each processor, the list of partition IDs.
+
+  PARTITION_DISTRIBUTE
+
+?
+
+  MPI_IO_RANK=<RANK>
+
+For IO modes in which a single processor handles all disk access, the
+MPI rank of the processor to use.  Default is 0.
+
+
+-----------------------
+Format-specific options
+-----------------------
+
+Stereo Lithography (STL) files
+------------------------------
+  
+   BINARY|ASCII
+   
+Write binary or text STL file.  Default is text.
+
+   BIG_ENDIAN|LITTLE_ENDIAN
+   
+Force byte ordering of binary data.  Default is BIG_ENDIAN for writing
+and autodetection for reading (BIG_ENDIAN if autodetect fails).