Input file 132 character limit
Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:55 am
Hi all,
Is the 132 character limit for individual lines still in place? If so, it would be really nice (and sensible) for abinit to actually check this and *fail* if a line is longer than 132 characters. If the 132 limit is coming from some C array size during the input parse, I can't see any reason not to just lift it to 32000 or something huge as it is unlikely we are going to encounter memory or storage limits on the scale of a few hundred bytes in this decade or the future. If there is some other good reason for the limit, then it needs to be checked on read to avoid the insidious situation where the code thinks it is treating atoms of a different species than specified in the input file. Imagine how difficult spotting that sort of mistake is. I know there's a one-line warning about it in the online abinit HELP file, but it is easy to forget and (if you're working on big molecules) easy to exceed in say the typat variable.
I'd be interested to hear what the devs think about these kind of polishing issues.
Kane
Is the 132 character limit for individual lines still in place? If so, it would be really nice (and sensible) for abinit to actually check this and *fail* if a line is longer than 132 characters. If the 132 limit is coming from some C array size during the input parse, I can't see any reason not to just lift it to 32000 or something huge as it is unlikely we are going to encounter memory or storage limits on the scale of a few hundred bytes in this decade or the future. If there is some other good reason for the limit, then it needs to be checked on read to avoid the insidious situation where the code thinks it is treating atoms of a different species than specified in the input file. Imagine how difficult spotting that sort of mistake is. I know there's a one-line warning about it in the online abinit HELP file, but it is easy to forget and (if you're working on big molecules) easy to exceed in say the typat variable.
I'd be interested to hear what the devs think about these kind of polishing issues.
Kane