[petsc-dev] do PETSC_VIEWER_{HDF5,BINARY}_ need to exist?

[Smith, Barry F.]

> On May 8, 2019, at 6:41 AM, Hapla Vaclav via petsc-dev <petsc-dev at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> I just encountered their manpages and it's a mess. I think in case of file I/O, a user should be deliberate about filename and other settings. Sometimes less is more and I think this is the case. Why anybody should use PETSC_VIEWER_BINARY_(comm) and then set the filename with environment variable? Better to use PetscObjectViewFromOptions for instance (PETSC_OPTIONS can be used if one wants to use env var).
> 
> (And BTW in case of HDF5, the option -viewer_hdf5_filename is not processed anywhere.)
> 
> Any objections about removing these?

   Removing what?

   Are you suggesting removing PETSC_VIEWER_BINARY_(comm), PETSC_VIEWER_SOCKET_(), PETSC_VIEWER_DRAW_(), PETSC_VIEWER_HDF5_(), PETSC_VIEWER_MATLAB_()?

    I object, I think they are very useful and largely orthogonal to PetscObjectViewFromOptions(). 

  The reason for command line options for file names is if one is, for example, running a script that calls the executable multiple times with different options and wants each output save in a different file.  Using the current code it is trivial. 

  Barry



> 
> Vaclav