Command line interface user @openfoam:~$… 🔗
OpenFOAM comprises many applications, primarily designed to be driven by the command line. Whilst sometimes unfamiliar to new users, this interface provides the most flexible means by which to control the phases of case set-up, execution and evaluation of results, and lends itself to automation and batch-processing.
Basic usage🔗
Applications are invoked using commands of the form:
<application> [OPTIONS] <arguments>
More detailed usage information is available using the help option; for example, when applied to the blockMesh application as:
blockMesh -help
the following text is presented:
Usage: blockMesh [OPTIONS]
Options:
-case <dir> Case directory (instead of current directory)
-dict <file> Alternative blockMeshDict
-merge-points Geometric point merging instead of topological merging
[default for 1912 and earlier].
-no-clean Do not remove polyMesh/ directory or files
-region <name> Specify alternative mesh region
-sets Write cellZones as cellSets too (for processing purposes)
-time <time> Specify a time to write mesh to (default: constant)
-verbose Force verbose output. (Can be used multiple times)
-write-vtk Write topology as VTU file and exit
-doc Display documentation in browser
-help Display short help and exit
-help-compat Display compatibility options and exit
-help-full Display full help and exit
Block mesh generator.
The ordering of vertex and face labels within a block as shown below.
For the local vertex numbering in the sequence 0 to 7:
Faces 0, 1 (x-direction) are left, right.
Faces 2, 3 (y-direction) are front, back.
Faces 4, 5 (z-direction) are bottom, top.
7 ---- 6
f5 |\ :\ f3
| | 4 ---- 5 \
| 3.|....2 | \
| \| \| f2
f4 0 ---- 1
Y Z
\ | f0 ------ f1
\|
o--- X
Using: OpenFOAM-2212 (2212) - visit www.openfoam.com
Build: _70874860-20230612 (patch=230612)
Arch: LSB;label=32;scalar=64
Navigation🔗
Useful commands🔗
Moving around the source code and cases is easily performed using standard linux commands, e.g.
-
ls
: list directory contents -
cd
: change directory
In addition, several aliases are available which provide short cuts to many OpenFOAM directories. These include:
-
foam
: change to the main OpenFOAM project directory -
src
: change to the top-level source directory -
sol
: change to the top-level solver directory -
util
: change to the top-level utilities directory -
tut
: change to the top-level tutorial directory
Tab completion🔗
Command line tab completion of OpenFOAM applications presents users with selections that are tailored for the current action. For example, issuing
checkMesh <TAB> <TAB>
returns the list of available options for the checkMesh
utility:
-allGeometry -allRegions -allTopology -case
-constant -decomposeParDict -latestTime -meshQuality
-noTopology -noZero -parallel -region
-regions -time -writeAllFields -writeFields
-writeSets -doc -help
Many options require additional user inputs, identified by -option <value>
entries when requesting help via the -help
option, as shown in the
previous blockMesh example.
If using the -time
option, the completion will limit the options to the list
of available times, e.g. after running the tutorial:
Invoking the following:
checkMesh -time <TAB> <TAB>
returns:
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Multi-region cases are notoriously complex to set-up and process. The -region
option will limit the available options to the list of regions, e.g. applied to
the tutorial:
Invoking the following:
checkMesh -region <TAB> <TAB>
returns:
air porous
Command line help🔗
Manual pages provide a straightforward interface to access the options available to all OpenFOAM applications. See the full list of options here: