Re: [HTCondor-users] Is there a non-hack way to have a submit description exit and throw an error message?

[Michael Pelletier <Michael.V.Pelletier@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The key thing to remember about the submit description, Dmitri, is that it's declarative, not procedural. It can take a bit of time to get the hang of that concept, as I know from personal experience, but it's pretty powerful once you do.

Like TJ said, it's evaluated only once. It's not looping through it once per queued job, so the idea of something like $(VAR)++ notation isn't applicable. The "queue $(N)" command is saying "create $(N) jobs with the characteristics described above," and that happens in one fell swoop.

For instance, I'm working on overhauling some old submission scripts which currently take a few hours to submit a few thousand Monte Carlo iterations because the scripts do one condor_submit per Monte Carlo iteration, in a "procedural" style inside a for loop in a script - which was a result of the author not having the hang of submit description back in the day.

With the overhaul, I declare the appropriate set of job characteristics that the script currently sets up, and then declare "submit $(A_FEW_THOUSAND)" and it's done within seconds.

	-Michael Pelletier.