So its back to the grindstone following a not-long-enough christmas and new year break. This month its all about finalising my model and getting it to a state where I can send off a batch run of the model to Southampton University's super computer. Not only will this mean I get my model to work much more efficiently but that I also won't have to sit around for ages watching the GUI display and waiting... and waiting.... and waiting... whilst tediously repeating... repeating... and repeating runs whilst manually changing parameters.
Excellent.
Only problem is, Repast, once again, seems to be letting me down on documentation! This has to be THE major disadvantage of using this software over others such as MASON (whom several people have suggested I use, but I'm loathe to, considering the time and effort I've spent in learning Repast and the fact that MASON seems to be heavily social simulation focused).
However, there are some other kind people out there who, also noticing the severe lack of Repast documentation, have been amazingly generous by recording and allowing public access to their findings. Pamela Toman, I am very grateful to you for this post about doing batch runs in Repast. Some other useful pages exist including one of Repast Simphony's own online pages found here that outlines the format of how to amend the batch_params.xml file, even if it doesn't go into detail about how to get this to work, or what the file should look like once its been constructed.
Basically, its all a bit more complicated that it needs to be. Repast has an option of a Batch run from the run menu in Eclipse. This requires you to show it where it can find the batch parameters run file (batch_params.xml located in the batch folder within the model architecture in eclipse). I've yet to get to the point of trying this out but it seems that if you just want to run a batch run within eclipse, this MAY be all you need to do.
Exporting the model to run in batch via an external source (i.e. a super-computer) seems much more complicated and there are several files that need amending in order for this to work. So far, I've done the amending, but not been able to test if the export works. Thats next on my list of jobs to do.
Pamela Tomans post outlines all of this, but in brief:
1. The main amendments involved the start_model.bat or start_model.command files (.bat in Windows, .command in Mac/Linux). The model needs to know explicitly where to look for all necessary files, which need to be manually added (running in GUI doesn't require this step). The repast.simphony.repast.RepastMain command also needs to be changed to repast.simphony.batch.BatchMain so it knows to run in batch mode (see Pamela Tomans post for more details on how to amend this file).
2. Actually, what you need to do is create a new start_model.command/bat file. You can call it whatever you want, but if you want the model to be able to run in both GUI and batch, you can't amend the original start_model.command file. If you do, it will no longer run in GUI mode.
3. Now you have added a new file for batch, you need to add this to two other files, so the model knows to look at this file. Here you need the find the installation_coordinator.xml and installation_components.xml files (both within the installer folder of the model architecture in eclipse). Again, more info on Pamela Tomans post.
I have a slight issue with this step however. My installation_coordinator.xml file has a slightly different format to that suggested by Pamela (and others when I googled online). Im still trying to work out where to add the necessary information..... The install_components.xml file was straightforward to amend.
4. Ok, now you should be ready to update the batch_params.xml file. Again, Pamela has a good example on her page. Im currently working through this to get ready to test with a simple one-parameter change and only 5 runs. I'll update once I know more and post my final .xml file.
5. Now comes the tricky bit as far as I can tell. If the batch is to run within repast then you should just be able to choose the batch model run and show it the batch_params.xml file. Again I should be testing this soon.... if the batch is to export and go to a super-computer, then the batch file itself needs to be amended. Not sure where to find this or how to run the batch file outside of repast. Should have some answers here within the month. Fingers crossed.
Useful webpages
Pamela Toman - http://www.pamelatoman.net/blog/tag/batch-runs/
Repast Simphony batch runs - http://repast.sourceforge.net/docs/reference/SIM/Batch%20Runs.html
Repast Simphony batch parameters - http://repast.sourceforge.net/docs/reference/SIM/Batch%20Parameters.html
Repast Parameter Sweeps Getting Started - http://repast.sourceforge.net/docs/RepastParameterSweepsGettingStarted.pdf
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