Modularizing project files

Project files .prj have to be valid XML documents. For information of specific tags see our Doxygen-documentation.

Two methods allow you to modularize your project files and avoid repetition:

Option 1: Include XML-content from other files

The <include file="other_file.xml" />-tag allows to include the content of another XML into the current project file.

Limitation: Only one child include-element per (regular) XML-element is allowed.

Example

Tests/Data/Elliptic/circle_radius_1/circle_1e1_axi.prj:

    <processes>
        <include file="../cube_1x1x1_SteadyStateDiffusion/SteadyStateDiffusion.xml"/>
    </processes>

Tests/Data/Elliptic/cube_1x1x1_SteadyStateDiffusion/SteadyStateDiffusion.xml:

<process>
    <name>SteadyStateDiffusion</name>
    <type>STEADY_STATE_DIFFUSION</type>
    <integration_order>2</integration_order>
    <process_variables>
        <process_variable>pressure</process_variable>
    </process_variables>
    <secondary_variables>
        <secondary_variable internal_name="darcy_velocity" output_name="v"/>
    </secondary_variables>
</process>

Note on file encoding

Please do not use UTF-8 with BOM-encoding! The BOM-marker from the included file will be included somewhere in the middle of the final prj-file and this will cause OGS’ ConfigTree to crash. In a text editor you typically can convert a file to other encodings. Please also check your text editor for default encodings on creating new files. In general UTF-8 or ISO 8859-1 should be fine.

Option 2: Apply patch files to the project file

Patch files contain <replace>, <add> and <remove>-elements with XPath-selectors to modify a specific part of the project file (in-memory during run-time):

Tests/Data/Elliptic/square_1x1_SteadyStateDiffusion/square_neumann.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<OpenGeoSysProjectDiff>
    <add sel="/*/time_loop/output/prefix/text()" pos="after">_neumann</add>
    <replace sel="/*/parameters/parameter[2]/name/text()">p_neumann</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/parameters/parameter[3]/name/text()">p_Dirichlet</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/parameters/parameter[3]/value/text()">1</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/process_variables/process_variable/boundary_conditions/boundary_condition[1]/parameter/text()">p_Dirichlet</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/process_variables/process_variable/boundary_conditions/boundary_condition[2]/type/text()">Neumann</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/process_variables/process_variable/boundary_conditions/boundary_condition[2]/parameter/text()">p_neumann</replace>
    <add sel="/*/process_variables/process_variable/boundary_conditions/boundary_condition[1]" pos="after">
        <boundary_condition>
            <geometrical_set>square_1x1_geometry</geometrical_set>
            <geometry>bottom</geometry>
            <type>Dirichlet</type>
            <parameter>p_Dirichlet</parameter>
        </boundary_condition>
    </add>
</OpenGeoSysProjectDiff>

For more examples see this page on the XML Patch Operations Framework.

Option 2a: Supply patch file(s) additionally to the prj-file

ogs -p path/to/square_1e0_neumann.xml [other/optional/patch_file.xml] path/to/square_1e0.prj

Supplied patch files are applied in the given order.

Option 2b: Use a patch file directly

If the patch file specifies a base_file:

Tests/Data/Elliptic/cube_1x1x1_SteadyStateDiffusion/cube_1e1.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<OpenGeoSysProjectDiff base_file="cube_1e0.prj">
    <replace sel="/*/mesh/text()">cube_1x1x1_hex_1e1.vtu</replace>
    <replace sel="/*/time_loop/output/prefix/text()">cube_1e1</replace>
</OpenGeoSysProjectDiff>

you can just pass this patch file:

ogs path/to/cube_1e1.xml

In this case you have just one patch file.

Combination of include and patch method

When both methods are combined the logical order is the following:

Apply patches
Insert includes
Apply patches marked with after_includes="true"-attribute only.

Example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<OpenGeoSysProjectDiff base_file="cube_1e0.prj">
    <!-- The first line is run before the includes: -->
    <replace sel="/*/mesh/text()">cube_1x1x1_hex_1e1.vtu</replace>
    <!-- The following is evaluated after the includes are run: -->
    <replace sel="/*/time_loop/output/prefix/text()" after_includes="true">cube_1e1</replace>
</OpenGeoSysProjectDiff>

Check project file syntax with `xmllint`

You can check the formatting with the xmllint-tool:

xmllint --noout myproj.prj

Installation of `xmllint`

We recommend to install via Chocolatey:

choco install xsltproc

Alternative installation

Another method is to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux where you can simply install Linux packages:

sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils

sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils

xmllint is part of the Homebrew xmlstarlet package:

brew install xmlstarlet

This article was written by Lars Bilke. If you are missing something or you find an error please let us know.
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