Viewing the EnergyPlus Simulation Log within OpenStudio CLI Terminals

asked 2017-09-27 16:06:43 -0500

chriswmackey
461 ●1 ●7

updated 2017-10-06 16:03:51 -0500

Hello unmethours community!

I have a question that should hopefully have a quick answer. I am used to running my EnergyPlus simulations using the Epl-run.bat file or within the OpenStudio application. As many of us know when we do this, we get a nice updating log on the status of the EnergyPlus simulation like so: image description

Now that I have been getting into the wonderful OpenStudio Command Line Interface (CLI), it's been great to have all of this power to apply Measures and automate long workflows. However, I have found that I do not get as much feedback in the terminal when I run an OSW through the CLI. The terminal simply looks like this (pardon the specific file path to the OSW): image description

I was wondering if it is possible to get this updating EnergyPlus simulation log in my terminal while running OpenStudio CLI. I understand if this functionality does not yet exist in OpenStudio CLI and I ask the question out of curiosity.

Thank you, as always.

UPDATE: Kyle's solution below seems like it should work but I think I might have the wrong port. This is the message I get from OpenStudio CLI: image description And this is the message I get from the netcat function: If I figure out the right port to use, I'll post back here.

answered 2017-09-28 09:50:35 -0500

Kyle Benne
6027 ●4 ●9 https://www.openstudio.net/

It is possible to get the E+ output from the OpenStudio CLI, the OpenStudio App is using the CLI behind the scenes after all, but it is not currently as simple as you would expect.

First, note that the CLI has a --verbose option that will give you much more output, however this output pertains to what the CLI is doing and the steps that it is proceeding through in the workflow. Even the --verbose output does not include the E+ standard out.

There is another option, -s, to pipe the standard output of E+ to a socket. This is actually what the OpenStudio App is doing. I realize this is not convenient for many use cases, including probably yours, but for the sake of completeness, I'll try to explain one way of using this option. It is in fact a bit obscure and perhaps we can revise the options to make it easier to see the E+ standard out in the future.

Here's one way to use the -s option:

Use the "netcat" utility to setup a socket listener. The command is named nc and it probably does not come standard on MS Windows, but you can download it. In order to setup a listener on port 1235 enter the command, nc -l 1235.
In another command prompt use the OpenStudio CLI in the normal way but add the -s option passing the port 1235 (or any other available port, nc will fail to execute if 1235 is taken) as an option. openstudio run -s 1235 -w workflow.osw.

Like I said, not exactly convenient, but if you successfully started the nc utility, you should see E+ output in the command window where you started nc.

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Thanks for the quick response, Kyle! I'll try out socket workflow as soon as I get the chance and report on the outcome here. At the least, I will use the --verbose output. Thanks again!

chriswmackey ( 2017-09-28 10:14:18 -0500 )edit

Anybody managed to make it work with wsl (windows subsystem for linux)? Error: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. - connect(2) for "localhost" port 12345 in eval:433:in `initialize'