Weather converter DLL - undocumented functions

energyplus-weather-converter

asked 2018-01-05 08:48:16 -0500

dhollman
387 ●11

updated 2018-01-10 06:10:40 -0500

Viewing the exports of the file EPLUSWTH.dll (using Dependecy Walker) reveals two functions not mentioned in the documenation:

EndListProcessing
StartListProcessing

image description

All the other exports are included in the documentation. Typically undocumented functions are not meant to be used; but on the other hand the documentation leaves out a few other technical details, and also someone took the trouble of making sure these were exported.

They sound like they might be useful when processing files in batch?

Is there any info on what these are for, or whether they should not be used?

EDIT: Just to note, Dependency Walker cannot determine what the parameters would be for exported functions. So to actually use these someone would have to know (or guess) those details.

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answered 2018-01-06 12:51:53 -0500

Joe Huang
2712 ●4 ●13

updated 2018-01-11 17:39:28 -0500

I've never looked into nor have need of the DLL, but these two functions do sound like the batch processing way of running the weather converter which is the only way I use the program because I'm working with thousands of weather files. I believe this feature is minimally described in the documentation as processing by List where you create an ASCII *.lst file with two columns giving the input and output file names, like this:

AB_CALGARY-IAP_718770_17.CSV                     AB_CALGARY-IAP_718770_17.epw
AB_COLD-LAKE_711200_17.CSV                       AB_COLD-LAKE_711200_17.epw
AB_EDMONTON-IAP_711230_17.CSV                    AB_EDMONTON-IAP_711230_17.epw
AB_EDMONTON-NAMAO-AP_711210_17.CSV               AB_EDMONTON-NAMAO-AP_711210_17.epw
...

Then, when you run the WeatherConverter, just enter the name of this *.lst file to run. Caution: if the input files are of a format that the converter does not recognize (like what 's in the sample list above), WeatherConverter will expect a *.def definition file for each file.

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Note to all puzzled readers: The sample list that I put in my answer above is a victim of the display settings of UnMet Hours. It should be a fixed format ASCII file with two columns of 40 characters each, the first giving the name of the file to be converted and the second the name of the converted file. I discovered the 40 character limit by painful trial-and-error, because I do have occasional long file names like SAU_PRINCE-ABDULMAJEED-BIN-ABDULA_404010_17, which I don't want to modify just to fit the WeatherConverter's criteria. In those cases, I use the WeatherConverter interactively.