When debugging scripts you need to consider the process used to submit the job. First, a script is accessed and expanded to create the job file. This job file is then submitted to the relevant system where it is run, possibly via a queuing system. Errors can occur at any of these steps.
Location of ecFlow script
The first thing to check is whether the job file can be created. In the GUI you should be able to view your script. If not, you should receive a pop-up window indicating a file read error. This indicates that ecFlow cannot find your script as either it does not exist or ecFlow cannot find it. Look at the value of the ECF_SCRIPT variable to see where ecFlow expects to find the file. The location can be modified using the variable ECF_FILES as described later.
Creation of ecFlow job file
The next thing ecFlow will do is create the job file by adding all include files and substituting ecFlow variables (see the next chapter on "The ecFlow Pre-processor" for more details). To test if ecFlow can find all the include files and variables click the edit tab in ecflow_ui, info panel. If you get the error message "send failed for the node" ecFlow may not be able to access the include files or some ecFlow variables have not been set. More details will be given in the ecFlow log files.
Using Python API to check, Location of ecFlow scripts and Creation of job file
Both of the above steps can be done using ecFlow python API. This should be done on the server-side, where the scripts are accessible. For more details see: Checking Job Creation
import os
from ecflow import Defs,Suite,Task,Edit
home = os.path.join(os.getenv("HOME"), "course")
defs = Defs(
Suite('test',
Edit(ECF_HOME=home),
Task('t1')))
print("Checking job creation: .ecf -> .job0")
print(defs.check_job_creation())
Submission of ecflow job file
The next stage is to submit the ecFlow job file. The best way to debug this is to try the submission of the job file on the command line as described by your ECF_JOB_CMD variable. This will usually show up any problems in the job submission process. The script we use to submit our job files also makes visible the job submission output in the ECF_JOBOUT directory.
Job file debugging
You can debug your job file stand-alone, by running it outside of ecflow. To bypass the ecflow_client command in the job file, set the environment variable NO_ECF.
export NO_ECF=1 # this will cause ecflow_client to always return success. sh -x .....task.job1