eQuest Calculation Flag

Topic: Determining whether eQuest results reflect changes to the input files.

Some energy modeling programs (e.g. Trane Trace 700) provide an indication in the user interface when output file results no longer match the input data. While eQuest provides no such indication, the "calculation status" may be inferred from the file directory listing. Note that the following datafile list has been sorted in ascending date modified order:

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The three 'basic input' files (i.e. files not appended with 'Baseline Design' or an integer indicating the parametric run number) ending in .pd2, .prd and .inp are all within a few minutes of each other, and the parametric runs sequence begins within one minute after the .inp file is closed. We may infer that simulation calculations in the above example are synchronized with the input data.

Conversely, note the following:

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Here when sorted by date ascending, one of the three the basic input files (in this case the .inp file) is not visible in the list because it is out of sequence. If we were to search for it we would find that it is date and time-stamped later than the parametric runs.

Thus if any of the three basic input files does not precede the parametric run data in a list that is sorted ascending by date modified, then consider the output data 'stale' and proceed with recalculation.