HFSS15: LaunchProcess [IronPython]

Purpose

Launch a local or remote process to run an analysis engine. This function is called by the Ansoft desktop application to launch an engine process on a specified host. The hostname is one of the names provided by the GetMachineListAvailableForDistribution function. See the GetMachineListAvailableForDistribution section above. If the hostname does not refer to the local host, then this function shall use the scheduler to launch the engine on the specified host. If the hostname refers to the local host, then the engine may be started as a child process, or it may be started using the scheduler.

Signature

LaunchProcess(self, hostName, exePathName, arg1, arg2)

Arguments (excluding self)

hostName: The name of the host where the process is to be launched.

exePathName: The pathname of the analysis engine executable to be started.

arg1: The first argument of the analysis engine command line.

arg2: The second argument of the analysis engine command line.

Return Value

Returns 0 on success. Returns a non-zero value if an error occurs.

Notes

The hostName argument will be one of the hostnames provided by the function GetMachineListAvailableForDistribution().

If the hostName argument is the same as the current host, then the analysis engine process may be started as a child process. If the hostName argument is not the same as the current host, then the analysis engine process will be started on the remote host using the facilities available in the scheduler environment. The command line of the analysis engine process is exePathName arg1 arg2. The command line arguments arg1 and arg2 may contain spaces or other characters that are interpreted by the command processor, such as backslash (), single quote (') or double quote (") characters, or dollar signs ($). If the analysis engine command is processed by a shell, then it may be necessary to quote any special characters in the exePathName or in the arguments so that the special meaning is removed. If a scheduler command is used to request the scheduler to launch the command to start the engine process, and that command is processed by a command shell, then the analysis engine command may be processed by the shell twice: once when the scheduler command is processed, and a second time when the analysis engine process is started. If this is the case, then the quoting of special characters needs to account for two passes through the command processor.

The command line arguments arg1 and arg2 may be empty strings. These arguments must be preserved, even if they are empty strings. In some versions of the IronPython subprocess module, empty argument strings are discarded, resulting in an incorrect number of command line arguments. A workaround for this issue is to replace an empty string argument by a string consisting of a single space character.