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Recording the Experiment's Context

For recording environmental context, the tool labsetup is provided. It generates a resource file that contains information provided by the user in response to queries about certain commonly relevant environmental data. By default, this configuration file is called .labrc and is stored in the user's home directory. If such a file already exists, it will be modified according to the input provided and the old version of .labrc will be copied to .labrc.bak. Alternately, the user can indicate that a resource file, labrc should be created (or modified) in the current directory.

The tools use the information stored in such configuration files, if present, to augment the data provided via the command line. For options that may have a single value only, data in the local labrc file has precedence over data in the global file ($HOME)/.labrc, and options given at the command line have precedence over options provided in a configuration file. For options, such as --cvs for labrun, that may appear more than once on a command line, the union of the option values from the command line and the resource files, if any, is used by the tool.

Here is an excerpt from a sample run of labsetup showing how you can specify that the C compiler and its version should always be logged as well as the name of the graphics card being used.

labsetup session

labsetup, Revision 1.13, 2002/07/09

For all questions asked, the current value represented by existing 
~/.labrc is displayed in square brackets after the question.

If no value is set in ~/.labrc, the default value is shown 
in brackets.  To keep the value shown, simply hit return.  

To reset a flag not corresponding to a yes-no question to the default
use 'use default' as the input value.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[...]

Change settings for labrun? [y]
y

[...]

Environment variables whose values should be noted
   Enter new values one per line.

   Use a '+' at the beginning of the first line to add to the current
   list; otherwise any new values given will replace the current ones.

   An empty line ends the input.
[None]
CC


Additional comments to be recorded in log file
   Enter new values one per line.

   Use a '+' at the beginning of the first line to add to the current
   list; otherwise any new values given will replace the current ones.

   An empty line ends the input.
[None]
Compiler version=`$CC -v`:version
Graphics card=`hinv`:Graphics\sboard

[...]


next up previous contents index
Next: Specifying the Executable and Up: Setting up an Experiment Previous: Setting up an Experiment   Contents   Index
Tobias Polzin 2003-05-30