[Mohammad74]

Hi,

I have written a udf using "dirent.h" header to read a bunch of text files from an specified directory and import them into Ansys Fluent. However after building the code in Fluent, it gives me this error:

..\..\src\data_import.c(2) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'dirent.h': Invalid argument

What can I do now? It seems like Ansys does not support "dirent.h" header?
Is there any way to read a directory using Ansys UDFs?

Thank you!

[pakk]

We can't see how you tried to use that header file, so it is impossible for us to say if you made a mistake and how to fix it...

[AlexanderZ]

How to use a non-standard C library in a UDF

[Mohammad74]

Hello and thank you for your responses.

Originally Posted by AlexanderZ

How to use a non-standard C library in a UDF

I read this post and also read the UDF guide on how to "Link Precompiled Object Files From Non-ANSYS Fluent Sources", but since I am a newbie and not familiar with how .obj files work and how to make them, I preferred not to try this.

Anyhow, I solved my issue by using my code to read the data outside fluent and write them into 2 new files which can be read easier using a fluent UDF with standard C headers (no "dirent.h").

But now I have another question:
How can I use this data in other UDFs with different source files? In other words how to share variables between different UDFs?

[AlexanderZ]

you may use UDMs (user-defined memory) to do that,
however, UDMs contains the variable value on each cell/face of the domain. It is array. So it could be not efficient to use UDM to store single values, but it's the simplest approach.

also you may write/read variable to file.

the third option is rpvars. These are variable created in fluent cortex (not UDF) using scheme language. rpvars could be read/written in UDF as well. rpvars could be of different typres: integer, double, array, strings, so on.
Read Ansys Fluent Customization manual.

[Mohammad74]

Originally Posted by AlexanderZ

you may use UDMs (user-defined memory) to do that,
however, UDMs contains the variable value on each cell/face of the domain. It is array. So it could be not efficient to use UDM to store single values, but it's the simplest approach.

The UDM guide says you can define a maximum number of 500 UDMs but I want to store two matrices and one of them is a 2*361*11 matrix and the other one is 15*3. Should I define a UDM for each of their elements individually (which will exceed 500 UDMs.) or I can define 1 UDM for each matrix.

Also as you said, UDMs store variables of Cells/Faces or nodes but the data that I'm trying to store do not belong to any of these and I'm reading them from text files. So what should i do with the input arguments of F_UDMI macro (i.e. face and thread identifiers) ?

Thanks for assistance!

[Mohammad74]

Originally Posted by AlexanderZ

you may use UDMs (user-defined memory) to do that,
however, UDMs contains the variable value on each cell/face of the domain. It is array. So it could be not efficient to use UDM to store single values, but it's the simplest approach.

also you may write/read variable to file.

the third option is rpvars. These are variable created in fluent cortex (not UDF) using scheme language. rpvars could be read/written in UDF as well. rpvars could be of different typres: integer, double, array, strings, so on.
Read Ansys Fluent Customization manual.

Hello,

So thanks to Ansys UDF manual, I managed to share my desired variables between different UDF source codes in a much simpler way than the methods mentioned above. Sharing it here so others might find it helpful:

Lets say you want to use the values of 2 matrices like: a[5][5] and b[5][5] that you have defined in a UDF called "Code1.c", in the UDF called "Code2.c".

1.First you must define these two matrices in one of the source codes as Global Variables which means they have to be defined outside the macro definition:

#include "udf.h"

real a[5][5] , b[5][5] ;

DEFINE_WHATEVER_MACRO(arg1,arg2,...)
{
    // Your macro code that uses a and b goes here.
}

2. Then you have to make a header file like "Extvar.h" in which you define the variables that you want to share as External, like this:

extern real a[5][5] , b[5][5] ;

3. Now you can include this header file in all the other UDF source codes (like "Code2.c" ) that are going to use a & b variables. Like this:

#include "udf.h"
#include "Extvar.h"

DEFINE_WHATEVER_MACRO(arg1,arg2,...)
{
    // Your code that uses a and b goes here.
}

4. This method works only for compiled UDFs. It is also important to note that when you are trying to compile the "Code1.c" and "Code2.c" source codes, you should also include the "Extvar.h" header file in the "Compiled UDFs" dialogue box.


I tested this and it worked just fine.