[petsc-dev] PETSC_VIEWER_*_() vs PetscOptionsGetViewer()

[Matthew Knepley]

On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 11:36 AM Hapla Vaclav via petsc-dev <
petsc-dev at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:

> Let me follow up discussion on creating/controlling viewers from options.
>
> Barry agrees to rename PetscOptionsGetViewer()
> to PetscViewerCreateFromOptions() in Issue #291
> <https://bitbucket.org/petsc/petsc/issues/291/>.
>
> But now I can see a problem: it mixes Get and Create behavior, as it
> returns the singleton provided by PETSC_VIEWER_*_() if possible, otherwise
> creates a new viewer using PetscViewerCreate(). So actually both names
> PetscOptionsGetViewer() and PetscViewerCreateFromOptions() are confusing.
>
> I think this design is unnecessarily complicated and not really useful.
> I don't see any advantage of reusing the singleton in this context.
> And leads to some IMHO unexpected behavior:
> * -myviewer hdf5:: and -myviewer hdf5 is not the same! I didn't know that
> but hdf5:: creates a new viewer and hdf5 reuses the singleton.
> * Any properties (including options prefix) set to the viewer returned by
> PetscOptionsGetViewer() actually affect the singleton and vice versa.
>   (See https://bitbucket.org/petsc/petsc/commits/324f959)
>
> So in my opinion PetscOptionsGetViewer()
> * should really be renamed PetscViewerCreateFromOptions(),
> * should _always_ return a new instance and call
> PetscViewerSetFromOptions() on it,
> * could also set the passed prefix to the viewer, i.e.
> PetscViewerCreateFromOptions(comm, options, "pre_", ...) would result in
> the viewer having prefix pre_
>

I like this.

One thing also wanted was the ability to give several formats.

   Matt


> Do you think it would break anything?
>
> Thanks,
> Vaclav
>
> BTW all PETSC_VIEWER_XXX_() manpages say "Creates a XXX PetscViewer shared
> by all processors in a communicator."
> This is apparently not true - they are singletons stashed to the
> communicator by MPI_Comm_set_attr() and next time reused if found using
> MPI_Comm_get_attr(), right?
> So it should be Returns, not Creates.
>


-- 
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
experiments lead.
-- Norbert Wiener

https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/ <http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/>
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