wish list: data capture

[Sven N. Thommesen]

Another 'wheel' that many have invented is a way to capture data from all
the agents in a model.

Personally, I have experimented with:

a) each object outputs a data file every period, with a name like
'fileType.objectName.runNumber.simTime'. Problem: you quickly generate too
many files for the file system to handle gracefully. (On Linux, about 3500
files to a subdirectory seems to be the practical limit.)

b) each object outputs a data file which is added to each period, with a
name like 'fileType.objectName.runNumber'. For this I created a new
'AppendFile' object similar to OutFile.

c) each object calls a central data collection object every period, passing
a text string to it. The central data object writes the data to one file,
named 'fileType.runNumber'.

d) the central data object polls every agent/object each period, receiving
text strings in return. (Simpler in terms of scheduling, but it requires
the central data object to know a lot about the model.)

Have others implemented similar functionality, but in a different and
perhaps more useful way? Would it make sense to implement any of these
solutions for all Swarm objects?

Sven