CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonscipy
cytochrome
cytochrome

Reputation: 549

generating simulation input files with Python

I am using a scientific simulation package that requires several text-based input files for each 'experiment' to be conducted. These files can be quite lengthy and have a lot of boilerplate sections in them; however, specific 'experiment-specific' values must be entered at many locations within these files.

I would like to automate the generation of these files and do so in a way that is maintainable.

Right now, I am using a Python script I wrote that employs triple quoted blocks of text and variable substitution (using % and .format()) to create sections in the files. I then write out these blocks to the appropriate files.

Accounting for proper aesthetic indentation in the resulting input files is proving to be difficult; moreover, the autogenerator script is becoming more and more opaque as I enhance the types of simulations and options that can be handled.

Does anyone have suggestions about how to manage this task in a more elegant and maintainable way?

I am aware of templating packages like jinja. Do these have benefits outside of generating html-like files? Has anyone used these for the above-stated purpose?

Perhaps a totally different approach would be better.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1412

Answers (2)

Simon
Simon

Reputation: 10841

My usual approach to this sort of problem is to create a small library of functions that help me generate and customise the boiler-plate. I don't know what your experiment-definition language looks like but generally I'd need to write a function that writes out the text to initialise the simulation, a function that writes out the text to wrap up the simulation and some other functions to write out the different chunks of text that define each type of experiment.

Having put those functions in a file called mysim, say, I could then use them like this:

from mysim import sim_init, sim_conclude, experimentType1, experimentType2

sim_init (name="Today's Simulation", author="Simon")
for param1 in [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,20,30,40,50,60,70]:
    experimentType1 (param1)
    for param2 in ["A", "B", "C"]:
        experimentType2 (param1, param2)
sim_conclude (savefile="output.txt")

This Python script would generate a simulation input file that would run experiment type 1 for each value of param1 and experiment type 2 for each combination of param1 and param2.

The function implementations themselves might look messy, but the script that creates a particular simulation file will be simple and clear.

Upvotes: 1

Kyle Kelley
Kyle Kelley

Reputation: 14144

Jinja doesn't care what type of file you make. Text is text is text, unless it's binary. Not even sure Jinja cares then either.

IPython, and in particular, nbconvert, uses Jinja2 to export LaTeX, ipynb, markdown, etc.

There is also an IPython notebook with Jinja2 magics in case you want a demo.

Upvotes: 2

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