Using Command Files

To get started, you don't need to understand the SNOMAN commands at all! Type

snoman.exe

to run the code. When it asks for input, reply:-

@run_e_minus

This tells SNOMAN to read the file RUN_E_MINUS.CMD which will simulate 100 5.0 MeV electrons uniformly distributed throughout the D$_2$O , emitted isotropically. You can look at the .cmd file to start to get an idea what SNOMAN commands look like.

The program will print a few summaries on your screen. Far more output is directed to the log file snoman.log (if this file already exists the file will be named snoman_log.nnnnnn) The code will then go away and have a think for a while. Just to reassure you that it is not sulking, it will report progress on the screen every so often with, if possible, an estimate of the fraction complete. It tries not to produce too much output; the more events that are processed, the less frequently the summary is produced. If all is well the program will eventually print a brief summary including the number of ZTELL errors which were reported (which are not all errors, for instance a call to ZTELL with error code 900 merely means that the event failed to exceed the hardware trigger), and CPU used, and finally should say ``STOP NORMAL STOP BY ZEND". There should also now be a file called HBOOKSM.NTP in the local directory, this file contains all the useful output of the run. If unable to run the program because it is too large or if it keeps failing events because of a store full condition, adjust the size of the dynamic memory as described in section 3.1. The program also produces a far more detailed printer output file on the log file, which includes anything sent to the screen. If reporting an error in SNOMAN, please send this file as well as an error messages reported by your system.

There are a number of other standard jobs you can run. Any command file of the form:-

RUN_*.CMD

is a ready to run, complete command file. We will try to maintain a complete set of these commands to demonstrate all the major functions of SNOMAN. A list of available command files is given in:-

Companion / Commands and Command Files / SNOMAN Command Files

Command files of the form:-

RUN_WRITE_*.CMD

instruct SNOMAN to write a data file. Others:-

RUN_ANALYSE_*.CMD

read and analyse these data files.

One command file:-

RUN_PICK_AND_MIX.CMD

gives a fairly complete list of commands and you can use this as a basis of for exploring all of the SNOMAN functionality.

If you make any mistakes when entering commands (or if there are any in the command files you use) SNOMAN will ask for confirmation before starting to execute the task in hand. The default answer is No thus ensuring that if you make mistakes in files used to run SNOMAN non-interactively, it won't waste time executing junk.