#30: Implement a "get" command --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: hinder | Owner: mthomas Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: minor | Milestone: Component: SimFactory | Version: Resolution: | Keywords: --------------------------+-------------------------------------------------

Comment (by hinder):

I have been working like this for the last few years, and the occasional corrupted HDF5 has not been a problem. However, recently I have started to run simulations with many more files and more frequent output, and I sometimes get into the situation where every time I sync the simulation, at least one of the files is corrupt, as they are written very frequently, and if they are copied before the write finishes, the copy can be corrupt. A corrupt HDF5 file cannot be used; you cannot read the previous datasets, you cannot even list the datasets. You just have to sync again and hope for the best. I also agree that stopping the simulation is to be avoided if possible. In the far future, we would probably be able to create a filesystem-level snapshot of the simulation at the end of each iteration. That would ensure a consistent state which could be easily copied. But filesystems and OSes are not up to that yet.

Re: writing a time stamp to a separate file: The timestamp on the file won't be updated until the file is closed.