nHermes, the batch Hermes


nHermes (non-interactive Hermes) is the version of Hermes to be used for batch processing.

Because the user is not available to be consulted, default values for unspecified keywords will be taken if available. If there is no default available, an error message will be written to the log file and nHermes will stop with the current command. When a command is finished, nHermes will start the next command if given.

If the timeout option is set, a timeout will occur after the user supplied number of minutes and nHermes will terminate the command it is dealing with at that time. The timeout works separately for each user command.

nHermes maintains a log file to which a history of all operations is written. This file can be inspected or printed afterwards.

Using nHermes

nHermes is usually run indirectly via the script ngipsy. On the rare occasions when nHermes should be run directly, just change ngipsy into nhermes in the command. Syntax:
ngipsy -llogfile -tminutes command ... command
The options may appear in any order and may be intermixed with the commands. The -l and -t flags are optional.

The log file will always have the extension .LOG and it contains a history of all operations done and the information generated by the tasks which have been run. The default log file name is GIPSY.LOG.

The purpose of the timeout option is to terminate the user command when it uses more time than is thought to be reasonable, e.g. if it is executing an endless loop due to a program or user error.

command can be a COLA script or a name of a task with their parameters. The name of the task or the COLA script with the parameters must be suitably quoted to keep it together, e.g. between double quotes. If this is not done, nHermes will handle them as if they were separate user commands.

Example:

ngipsy -lMylog "FLUX INSET=cg1517 v"
This command causes nHermes to start task FLUX on all subsets of set cg1517 and put the results in file Mylog.LOG.
Hermes GIPSY