ReadVarsESO not found through CLI

[mbadams5]

When I run EnergyPlus through the CLI on Mac and pass in '-r' to "Run ReadVarsESO after simulation" it doesn't actually find the ReadVarsESO executable. I get the following error...

ERROR: Could not find ReadVarsESO executable: /Applications/EnergyPlus-8-3-0/ReadVarsESO.

That isn't the correct path for the ReadVarsESO executable, which is in PostProcess. If I create a symlink in the location where EnergyPlus is expecting the executable, I get the following error message instead...

sh: /Applications/EnergyPlus-8-3-0/ReadVarsESO: cannot execute binary file

I will also say the CLI is very finicky about where it is run from since it will sometimes work perfectly and other times it hangs while at "Processing Input File" until I hit ctrl-c to break the execution.

[nealkruis]

The first thing is definitely a problem and I'll fix it ASAP. With the simlink, do you need to make the link executable? It seems to work for me.

[nealkruis]

@mbadams5 @kbenne so this problem isn't caught in the system tests because the "Products" directory structure on the CI is not the same as it is in the installed packages. Is there anything we can do to make the two structures more similar?

[kbenne]

@nealkruis is it the debug / release sub folder that is causing problems?

[nealkruis]

No. It's the fact that all of the executables on the CI are placed in the Products directory, and not in the respective "PreProcess" and "PostProcess" directories.

[kbenne]

ah. yes we could make the structure match. Frankly id rather see the install structure flattened, but that might get us in trouble

[nealkruis]

If I search for ReadVars in "[EXE_DIR]" and "[EXE_DIR]/PostProcess" that should cover both the packaged installs and the development testing environment. Does that seem reasonable?

Eventually we should probably build CSV writing into the actual EnergyPlus executable and deprecate ReadVarsESO altogether. (This might be one of my top feature requests)

[kbenne]

@nealkruis yes.

[nealkruis]

@kbenne in the meantime, it is probably good to consider mimicking the structure of the installer package as much as possible in the CI so that we can make sure there aren't other similar bugs.

Can we do that with relatively little effort and without messing other things up?

[nealkruis]

@mbadams5 changed the name since I imagine this problem exists on all platforms as long as ReadVars is in the PostProcess directory.

[mbadams5]

@nealkruis honestly the symlink was just to see if I could get it working in the location EnergyPlus was expecting. If you update EnergyPlus to look in the right spots or change the directory structure, that is the better approach. So don't worry about my symlink comment.

[kbenne]

@nealkruis we can have the build output mirror the install layout. Feels a little atypical to me, but I guess what is mostly atypical is spreading the executables around to various directories in the first place. Take a look at this which can be set on a per target basis.