Run QSoas complely non-interactively

QSoas can run scripts, and, since version 2.0, it can be run completely without user interaction from the command-line (though an interface may be briefly displayed). This possibility relies on the following command-line options:

• --run, which runs the command given on the command-line;
• --exit-after-running, which closes automatically QSoas after all the commands specified by --run were run;
• --stdout (since version 2.1), which redirects QSoas's terminal directly to the shell output.

If you create a script.cmds file containing the following commands:

generate-buffer -10 10 sin(x)
save sin.dat

and run the following command from your favorite command-line interpreter:

~ QSoas --stdout --run '@ script.cmds' --exit-after-running

This will create a sin.dat file containing a sinusoid. However, if you run it twice, a Overwrite file 'sin.dat' ? dialog box will pop up. You can prevent that by adding the /overwrite=true option to save. As a general rule, you should avoid all commands that may ask questions in the scripts; a /overwrite=true option is also available for save-buffers for instance.

I use this possibility massively because I don't like to store processed files, I prefer to store the original data files and run a script to generate the processed data when I want to plot or to further process them. It can also be used to generate fitted data from saved parameters files. I use this to run automatic tests on Linux, Windows and Mac for every single build, in order to quickly spot platform-specific regressions.

To help you make use of this possibility, here is a shell function (Linux/Mac users only, add to your $HOME/.bashrc file or equivalent, and restart a terminal) to run directly on QSoas command files:

qs-run () {
        QSoas --stdout --run "@ $1" --exit-after-running
}

To run the script.cmds script above, just run

~ qs-run script.cmds

About QSoas

QSoas is a powerful open source data analysis program that focuses on flexibility and powerful fitting capacities. It is described in Fourmond, Anal. Chem., 2016, 88 (10), pp 5050–5052. Current version is 2.1