Import/Export Task

Select Import/Export Task from the Job Preparation menu to specify files which have to be imported to or exported from the remote Job Directory (Uspace). In general, these are input files to one of the execution tasks (scripts, commands, other plugins) or result files which have to be saved before the temporary Job Directory on the remote system will be deleted.

In order to enter a new file import/export in the panel you have to press the Add button which will open a new line. Clicking on the field in the Source column will open a combo box which presents the list of known file spaces for files. It will always contain the Local file system (Nspace) and the ''Root'' and your ''Home'' directory on the remote system (Xspace). In addition, several ''storage servers'' may be listed which represent the access to different storage systems, e.g. database systems.

After selecting Local or one of the spaces on the server, press the Browse button to open a file selection dialog on the local or remote system. The name of a chosen file will be entered also in the Job Directory (Uspace) column where you may modify it.




Files on storage servers cannot be selected by a file selection dialog. You have to enter the path directly into the field.

The difference between the `Home' and the `Root' file space is that for the first one relative paths have to be specified (your home directory is prepended on the execution system automatically) and for the latter one absolute paths.

To remove an import/export action, select the line and press the Remove button .

The list of import/export actions which have been specified in one Import/Export Task are independent and will be executed in any order. In particular, the failure of one action will not influence the execution of the other actions (with the exception of actions involving the Local file system).

File systems

The file system model has been simplified in version 4.0 by removing the subspace definition. Known file systems are now:

The following file systems are only of interest for developers of plugins:

Directories

It is possible to specify directories as source of imports and exports. Enter the directory path either directly or by using the file chooser into the source field. The path may be specified with or without ending file separator (i.e. backslash under Windows, slash under Unix).

The imports and exports of files and directories is implemented according to the functionality of an interactive recursive copy under Unix ("cp -ir"), or an interactive copy under Windows, respectively. The answer to the virtual Unix/Windows overwrite question is taken from the Overwrite flag specified in the import/export panels..

CAUTION: When specifying an import/export of directory "A" to directory "B/A" (requirement: "B" exists) the result depends on the existence of "B/A":

Wildcards

It is possible to use wildcards in the specification of imports and exports. Known Wildcards are `*' and `?'.




For an export you enter the wildcard in the file specifications of the remote Job Directory (Uspace). Choose a directory as the destination on the local Client system.






CAUTION: For imports or exports from or to the Local file system wildcards may be only used in the so called "basename" of a file or directory specification. The basename is the pure file or directory name without any path information.

Overwrite

When importing or exporting files you may control by the overwrite flag whether existing files will be overwritten or not.

The Overwrite flag is purely file oriented and not directory oriented, because it is modelled according to the interactive copies under Windows and Unix. The Overwrite flag specifies the default answer to the corresponding (virtual) Windows/Unix questions. The file orientation implies that in case of a directory as the destination of an import/export and the non-overwrite flag set, the directory will be nevertheless modified as long as no file conflict occurs.

Binary Option

The correct setting of the Binary option is needed in particular for transfers of ASCII files between client Windows systems and the Unix servers, and vice versa. Otherwise the Windows' end-of-line characters will not be handled appropriately.

Imports from Local

All imports from your local file system (Nspace) to the remote Job Directory (Uspace) will be gathered and take place as a whole immediately when you submit your job. The reason for the immediate transfer is that the Client system may potentially be offline when the transfer should take place according to the work flow of the job.

However, beginning with UNICORE 4.0 the files are not visible immediately in the Uspace because they are stored first into a temporary directory. The files are revealed from the temporary directory when the related import task is executed according to the work flow. Because of this new import mechanism it is now also possible to import files with identical names but different pathes from Local.

Copy, cut, and paste in Import/Export panels

It is possible to copy, cut, and paste row(s) in the Import/Export panels. Select the row(s) and perform the copy/cut action from the pop-up menu opened by a right mouse click. Performing the paste action from the pop-up menu will append the selected rows at the end of the import/export list.

For technical reasons, rows should be selected not in any combo-box area. Always select on a field not in the combo-box column.

Dependencies

In order to work as intended, dependencies for the import/export tasks must be defined in almost all cases. Usually one or more execution tasks (script, command, other plugin) depend on an import task because they need just the transferred files as input. An export task normally depends on another task producing these files.