Experiment directory with @ character does not run properly

[danielabdi-noaa]

Expected behavior

SRW app should run when experiment directory contains @ character.

Current behavior

SRW app fails to run properly when the experiment directory contains the @ character. This was revealed during Jenkins testing on Cheyene, where both gnu and intel are tested and the latter is assigned a different experiment directory differentiated by expt_dir@2. It looks like rocoto <cyclestring>&LOGDIR;</cyclesctring> changes the @ character to % causing all sorts of problems. Now a an underscore is used for Jenkins but the @ issue still exists.

Machines affected

All

Steps To Reproduce

Add to your experiment directory path the @ character.

Detailed Description of Fix (optional)

Could be a rocoto issue.

Additional Information (optional)

Possible Implementation (optional)

Output (optional)

You will get the log files in a different directory where the @ is replaced with %. The LOGDIR generated by rocoto changes
test@2 to test%2

#! /bin/sh
#SBATCH --account=zrtrr
#SBATCH --qos=batch
#SBATCH --partition=service
#SBATCH --nodes=1-1
#SBATCH --tasks-per-node=1
#SBATCH -t 00:45:00
#SBATCH --job-name=get_extrn_ics
#SBATCH -o /scratch2/BMC/gsd-hpcs/Daniel.Abdi/expt_dirs/test%2/custom_GFDLgrid/log/get_extrn_ics_2019070100.log
#SBATCH --comment=22bb59625914e244ba065a866351335e
export GLOBAL_VAR_DEFNS_FP='/scratch2/BMC/gsd-hpcs/Daniel.Abdi/expt_dirs/test@2/custom_GFDLgrid/var_defns.sh'
export PDY='20190701'
export cyc='00'
export subcyc='00'
export LOGDIR='/scratch2/BMC/gsd-hpcs/Daniel.Abdi/expt_dirs/test%2/custom_GFDLgrid/log'
export ICS_OR_LBCS='ICS'
/scratch2/BMC/gsd-hpcs/Daniel.Abdi/ufs-srweather-app/ush/load_modules_run_task.sh "get_extrn_ics" "/scratch2/BMC/gsd-hpcs/Daniel.Abdi/ufs-srweather-app/jobs/JREGIONAL_GET_EXTRN_MDL_FILES"

[christopherwharrop-noaa]

The @ character is used in Rocoto <cyclestr> tags to designate various date/time components. If you want to use text in a <cyclestr> that contains an actual @ character, you will need to escape it by using two consecutive @@. The @ characters in <cyclestr> tags are replaced internally with % so that the strftime method can be called to expand the string into the values represented by the date/time fields.

[christopherwharrop-noaa]

Rocoto doesn't use % characters directly because the % character has special meaning in XML that interferes with that function, causing the XML parsers to fail.

[christopherwharrop-noaa]

Another solution would be to put the portion of the string containing the @ character outside of the <cyclstr> tag so that <cyclestr> only contains characters to be interpreted as date/time.

For example, replace:

<cyclestr>my silly @ string for time @Y@m@d@H@M</cyclestr>

with

my silly @ string for time <cyclestr>@Y@m@d@H@M</cyclestr>

[christopherwharrop-noaa]

Another solution, specific to this scenario, is to not use cyclestr> tags when there is nothing in the string that is dependent on the cycle. In the example cited here, no part of the LOGDIR path contains any date or time information. So you can just completely eliminate the use of <cyclstr> for this particular instance.

[dshawul]

@christopherwharrop-noaa Thanks for the explanation! I will try to move the cyclestring out of the LOGDIR path.