Deploying_your_application.rst

Deploying your Application

There is several ways to deploy the :ref:`application <application>` you want to study on your :ref:`simulated platform <platform>`, i.e. to specify which actor should be started on which host. You can do so directly in your program (as shown in :ref:`these examples <s4u_ex_actors>`), or using an XML deployment file. Either way, it is a good habit to keep your application apart from the deployment as it will :ref:`ease your experimental campaign afterward <howto_science>`.

Deploying actors from XML is easy: it only involves 3 tags: :ref:`pf_tag_actor`, :ref:`pf_tag_argument`, and :ref:`pf_tag_prop`. They must be placed in an encompassing :ref:`pf_tag_platform`. Here is a first example (search in the archive for files named ???_d.xml for more):

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE platform SYSTEM "https://simgrid.org/simgrid.dtd">
<platform version="4.1">
  <!-- The following starts an actor that runs the function `alice()` on the given host.
    -- It is not given any parameter, so its args is empty.
    -->
  <actor host="host1" function="alice" />

  <!-- The following starts another actor that runs `bob()` on host2.
    -- The args of this actor contains "3" and "3000" on creation.
    -->
  <actor host="host2" function="bob" />
    <argument value="3"/>
    <argument value="3000"/>
  </actor>

  <!-- Carole runs on 'host3', has 1 parameter "42" in its argv and one property.
    -- Use simgrid::s4u::Actor::get_property() to retrieve it.-->
  <actor host="host3" function="carol">
    <argument value="42"/>
    <prop id="SomeProp" value="SomeValue"/>
  </actor>
</platform>

---

<actor>

This tag starts a new actor executing the given function on a given host.

Parent tags: :ref:`pf_tag_platform` (only in deployment files)
Children tags: :ref:`pf_tag_argument`, :ref:`pf_tag_prop`
Attributes:

host:	Host on which this actor should be started (mandatory).
function:	Code to execute. That function must be registered beforehand with :cpp:func:`simgrid::s4u::Engine::register_actor` or with :cpp:func:`simgrid::s4u::Engine::register_function`.
start_time:	Useful to delay the start of your actor. -1 starts the actor immediately.
kill_time:	Time at which the actor should be killed. -1 means that the actor should not be killed automatically.
on_failure:	What to do when the actor's host is turned off and back on. Either DIE (default -- don't restart the actor) or RESTART

---

<argument>

Add a parameter to the actor, to its args vector. Naturally, the semantic of these parameters completely depend on your program.

Parent tags: :ref:`pf_tag_actor`
Children tags: none
Attributes:

value:	The string to add to the actor's args vector.