Manual pages are part of the ecFlow script. This is to ensure that the manual page is updated when the script is updated. The manual page is a very important operational tool allowing you to view a description of a task, its importance, task dependencies and possibly describing solutions to common problems. The ecFlow pre-processor can be used to extract the manual page from the script file to be viewed by ecflowview. The manual page is the text contained within the %manual and %end tags. They can be seen using the manual button on ecflowview.
Manual pages are a vital source of information to users. The text on manual pages is not copied into the job-file when ecFlow sends a task into execution. Suites, families and tasks can have manual pages. Manual pages for tasks are placed in the ecFlow script inside a pair of pre-processor lines as in the following example:
%manual OPERATORS: If this task fails, set it complete and report next working day ANALYST: Check something or do something clever! %end ls -l pwd hostname %manual Rest of the manual page is placed here, closer to the code %end
There can be multiple manual sections in the same file. When viewed they are simply concatenated. This helps in maintaining the manual pages. It is good practice to modify the manual pages when the script is changed.
Viewing manual page from the above ecFlow script would look something like
OPERATORS: If this task fails, set it complete and report
next working day
ANALYST: Check something or do something clever!
Rest of the manual page is placed here, closer to the code
After %manual all pre-processor symbols are ignored until %end is found. Thus you cannot use %comment - %end to un-comment manual pages. Manual pages may have include statements like in the following extract:
%manual OPERATORS: If this task fails, set it complete and report and next working day ANALYST: Check something or do something clever! %include <manual/foo.bar> %end ls -l pwd hostname %manual Rest of the manual page is placed here %end
For example standard instructions for operators could be placed in a single file and then included in every task (like contact phone numbers etc.) How the include file is found is explained in the next section.
Suites and families can also have manual pages. However, these are separate files placed in the suite/family directories e.g. the manual page for a family family1 is a file family1.man in the relevant directory.