Re: What is in initSwarm()? Was going to ask, but now propose an answer for FAQ or DOCS

[Marcus G. Daniels]

>>>>> "PJ" == Paul Johnson <address@hidden> writes:

PJ> lispAppArchiver (??) 
PJ> hdf5AppArchiver (??)

Whereas {lisp,hdf5}Archiver are used to store data in a single place
across a number of applications (e.g. ~/.swarmArchiver for saving
window positions), {lisp,hdf5}AppArchiver are used to store data about
a single application in a application-specific location.  If you run a
model from its build directory, the place is that build directory.  If you
run it from an installed location (e.g. the Swarm demos for Windows)
that place is $DATADIR/swarm/APPNAME/APPNAME.scm.  $DATADIR is
whatever you specific as --datadir at configure time, typically it's
$SWARMHOME/share, e.g. on a Redhat machine, /usr/share.

An example of lispAppArchiver can be found in main.m of heatbugs,
for creating a batch ModelSwarm from heatbugs.scm:

    if ((theTopLevelSwarm = [lispAppArchiver getWithZone: globalZone 
                                             key: "batchSwarm"]) == nil) 
      raiseEvent(InvalidOperation, 
                 "Can't find the parameters to create batchSwarm");

..which loads heatbugs.scm (the name is the application name plus ".scm"):
The ``key: "batchSwarm"'' part says to use the instantiation expression
below "'batchSwarm". 

(list
 (cons 'batchSwarm
       (make-instance 'HeatbugBatchSwarm
                      #:loggingFrequency 1
                      #:experimentDuration 250))
 (cons 'modelSwarm
       (make-instance 'HeatbugModelSwarm
                      #:numBugs 200
                      #:minIdealTemp 10000
                      #:maxIdealTemp 20000
                      #:minOutputHeat 10000
                      #:maxOutputHeat 20000 
                      #:randomMoveProbability 0.0)))

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