Figure 1: An out-of-date diagram of the organization of components (green), categories of tasks (blue), tasks (orange) and steps (red) in the polaris package.

Directory structure

In the polaris package within a local clone of the polaris repository, components, tasks and steps are laid out like shown in Fig 1.

Each component has its directory with the polaris package directory. Among other contents of the component’s directory is a tasks directory that contains all of the tasks, typically sorted into categories. Each subdirectory has directories or modules for the tasks and typically also python modules that define the step classes shared between tasks. Any step classes that are specific to a task would have a module within that task’s subdirectory.

More details on each of these organizational concepts – Components, Categories of tasks, Tasks, and Steps – are provided below.

The organization of the work directory similar but not quite the same as in the polaris package, as shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: An out-of-date diagram of the organization of components (green), categories of tasks (blue), tasks (orange) and steps (red) in an example work directory.

At the top level are directories for the components. There is no tasks subdirectory in this case – the subdirectories for the tasks are directly within the components’ directory. The organization of tasks within component can include many additional subdirectories that help sort different categories of tasks and versions of each task. In the examples shown above, each task is in a subdirectory indicating the category of task and then the resolution of the mesh used in the task. Steps that are shared between tasks are also in subdirectories of the component. Often, shared steps are outside of any task work directory, perhaps at the same level as the tasks that share them. Sometimes, it is appropriate for shared steps to be inside of a task (e.g. if all steps of one task are also steps of another task). Steps that are not shared between tasks should reside in subdirectories of that task. In some cases, additional subdirectories are used to sort steps within a task (e.g. if the same step will be run at different mesh resolutions in a convergence test).