Command-Line Options

The Dakota executable file is named dakota (dakota.exe on Windows). If this command is entered at the command prompt without any arguments, a usage message similar to the following appears:

usage: dakota [options and <args>]
            -help (Print this summary)
            -version [$val] (Print Dakota version number)
            -input <$val> (Freeform Dakota input file $val)
            -json <$val> (JSON Dakota input file $val)
            -preproc [$val] (Pre-process freeform input file with pyprepro or tool $val)
            -output <$val> (Redirect Dakota standard output to file $val)
            -error <$val> (Redirect Dakota standard error to file $val)
            -check (Perform input checks)
            -dump_ir <$val> (Dump parsed IR / ProblemDescDB JSON to file $val)
            -parser <$val> (Input parser: standard | nidr[strict][:dumpfile])
            -no_input_echo (Do not echo Dakota input file)
            -pre_run [$val] (Perform pre-run (variables generation) phase)
            -run [$val] (Perform run (model evaluation) phase)
            -post_run [$val] (Perform post-run (final results) phase)
            -read_restart [$val] (Read an existing Dakota restart file $val)
            -stop_restart <$val> (Stop restart file processing at evaluation $val)
            -write_restart [$val] (Write a new DAKOTA restart file $val)

Of these available command line inputs, -input or -json option is required, and -input can be omitted if a freeform input file name is the final item on the command line; all other command-line inputs are optional.

• The -help option prints the usage message above.

• The -version option prints the version number of the executable. With the optional argument will also print information about the configuration parameters related to that query, e.g., --version CXX will print information about the C++ compiler used.

• The -input option provides the name of a freeform Dakota input file, which can optionally be pre-processed as a template using the -preproc option.

• The -json option provides the name of a JSON format Dakota input file. It is mutually exclusive with the -input option. JSON format input files are not pre-processed.

• The -preproc option directs Dakota to pre-process the input file as a template using pyprepro before executing the study. Only freefrom input files can be pre-processed.

• The -check option invokes a dry-run mode in which the input file is processed and checked for errors, but the study is not performed.

• The -dump_ir option causes the intermediate representation of the user input to be dumped to a JSON file. This is primarily for use by developers.

• The -parser input selects between the default standard and deprecated nidr input file readers.

• The -output and -error options provide file names for redirection of the Dakota standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr), respectively. By default, Dakota will echo the input file to the output stream, but -no input echo can override this behavior.

• The -read restart and -write restart options provide the names of restart databases to read from and write to, respectively.

• The -stop restart option limits the number of function evaluations read from the restart database (the default is all the evaluations) for those cases in which some evaluations were erroneous or corrupted.

Note

Restart management is an important (but advanced) technique for retaining data from expensive engineering applications.

Note

Note that these command line options can be abbreviated so long as the abbreviation is unique. Accordingly, the following are valid, unambiguous specifications: -h, -v, -c, -i, -o, -e, -re, -s, -w, -ru, and -po and can be used in place of the longer forms of the command line options.