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<title>Workunits</title>
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<body bgcolor=ffffff>
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<h2>Workunits</h2>
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<p>
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A <b>workunit</b> describes a computation to be performed.
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Workunits are maintained in the <b>workunit</b> table in the BOINC DB.
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The attributes of a workunit include:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li> Its name (unique across all workunits in the project).
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<li> Its application.
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<li> An XML document describing its input files and other parameters
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(see below).
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<li> The estimated resource requirements of the work unit
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(computation, memory, disk space).
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<li> The maximum processing
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(measured in <a href=credit.html>Cobblestones</a>)
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and maximum disk space to be used for the computation.
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An instance of the computation that exceeds either of these bounds
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will be aborted.
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This mechanism is used to prevent an infinite-loop bug from
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indefinitely incapacitating a host.
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<li> A <b>delay bound</b>: upper bound on how long (in real time)
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a result associated with this work unit should take to complete.
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This determines which hosts the workunit can be sent to,
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and it's used to assign result deadlines and
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times for retrying results.
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</ul>
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<p>
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Some parameters of a workunit are described by an XML document of the form
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<pre>
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[ <file_info>...</file_info> ]
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[ ... ]
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<workunit>
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[ <command_line>-flags xyz</command_line> ]
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[ <env_vars>name=val&name=val</env_vars> ]
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[ <max_processing>...</max_processing> ]
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[ <max_disk>...</max_disk> ]
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[ <file_ref>...</file_ref> ]
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[ ... ]
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</workunit>
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</pre>
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The components are:
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<table border=1 cellpadding=6>
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<tr><td><command_line></td>
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<td>The command-line arguments to be passed to the main program.
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</td></tr>
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<tr><td><env_vars></td>
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<td>A list of environment variables in the form
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name=value&name=value&name=value.
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</td></tr>
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<tr><td><max_processing></td>
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<td>Maximum processing (in Cobblestones).
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The default is determined by the client; typically it is 1.
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</td></tr>
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<tr><td><max_disk></td>
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<td>Maximum disk usage (in bytes).
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The default is determined by the client; typically it is 1,000,000.
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</td></tr>
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<tr><td><file_ref></td>
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<td> describes a <a
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href="files.html">reference</a> to an input file, each of which is
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described by a <b><file_info></b> element.
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</td></tr></table>
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<p>
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A workunit is associated with an application, not with a particular
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version or range of versions.
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If the format of your input data changes in
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a way that is incompatible with older versions,
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you must create a new application.
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This can often be avoided by using XML data format.
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<p>
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The <a href="tools_work.html">create_work</a> utility program provides a
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simplified interface for creating workunits.
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