Manipulating Experiments

Experiments are stored in a directory that is created by the Collector. To manipulate experiments, you can use the usual UNIX commands cp, mv and rm and apply them to the directory. You cannot do so for experiments from releases earlier than Forte Developer 7 (Sun ONE Studio 7, Enterprise Edition for Solaris). Three utilities which behave like the UNIX commands have been provided to copy, move and delete experiments. These utilities are er_cp(1), er_mv(1) and er_rm(1), and are described below.

The data in the experiment includes archive files for each of the load objects used by your program. These archive files contain the absolute path of the load object and the date on which it was last modified. This information is not changed when you move or copy an experiment.

Copying Experiments With the er_cp Utility

Two forms of the er_cp command exist:

er_cp [-V] experiment1 experiment2
er_cp [-V] experiment-list directory

The first form of the er_cp command copies experiment1 to experiment2. If experiment2 exists, er_cp exits with an error message. The second form copies a blank-separated list of experiments to a directory. If the directory already contains an experiment with the same name as one of the experiments being copied the er_cp utility exits with an error message. The -V option prints the version of the er_cp utility. This command does not copy experiments created with earlier versions of the tools.

Moving Experiments With the er_mv Utility

Two forms of the er_mv command exist:

er_mv [-V] experiment1 experiment2
er_mv [-V] experiment-list directory

The first form of the er_mv command moves experiment1 to experiment2. If experiment2 exists the er_mv utility exits with an error message. The second form moves a blank-separated list of experiments to a directory. If the directory already contains an experiment with the same name as one of the experiments being moved, the er_mv utility exits with an error message. The -V option prints the version of the er_mv utility. This command does not move experiments created with earlier versions of the tools.

Deleting Experiments With the er_rm Utility

Removes a list of experiments or experiment groups. When experiment groups are removed, each experiment in the group is removed then the group file is removed.

The syntax of the er_rm command is as follows:

er_rm [-f] [-V] experiment-list

The -f option suppresses error messages and ensures successful completion, whether or not the experiments are found. The -V option prints the version of the er_rm utility. This command removes experiments created with earlier releases of the tools.