[mpas-developers] Restructuring high-level MPAS driver

[Jones, Philip W]

Folks,

A couple of quick comments.

The structure:
   call init()
    call run()
    call finalize()

Is certainly consistent with all other component and coupling frameworks, so should ease compatibility.  At some point, you'll probably need to specify arguments for input state, output state, some sort of time interval (for the run method) and returned error codes.

Another comment, that I think I've brought up previously, is that the generic names init, run, finalize (and probably others throughout mpas) are at risk for creating namespace conflicts in other components.  It'll be safer in the long run if mpas modules, public variables and public routine names add an mpas_ prefix or other string to reduce the possibility of conflict.  Similarly, there will be cases even within the framework where we will need to distinguish between component models, like MPAS_OcnInit  and MPAS_AtmInit, or something similar.

Finally, now that I've recommended making all the names longer with prefixes, I have run into compilers already (Absoft) that are having trouble with some of the long routine names (esp. Xylar's ;^) ).  We will probably need to deal with this at some point for portability.

Phil, engaging in drive-by software engineering...


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Correspondence/TSPA/DUSA EARTH
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Philip Jones                                pwjones at lanl.gov
Climate, Ocean and Sea Ice Modeling
Los Alamos National Laboratory
T-3 MS B216                                 Ph: 505-500-2699
PO Box 1663                                Fax: 505-665-5926
Los Alamos, NM 87545-1663