Dakota Reference Manual: flat_file

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flat_file

Read initial solutions from file

## Specification

Alias: none

Argument(s): STRING

## Description

`flat_file` allows the initial population to be read from a flat file. If `flat_file` is specified, a file name must be given.

Variables can be delimited in the flat file in any way you see fit with a few exceptions. The delimiter must be the same on any given line of input with the exception of leading and trailing whitespace. So a line could look like: 1.1, 2.2 ,3.3 for example but could not look like: 1.1, 2.2 3.3. The delimiter can vary from line to line within the file which can be useful if data from multiple sources is pasted into the same input file. The delimiter can be any string that does not contain any of the characters .+-dDeE or any of the digits 0-9. The input will be read until the end of the file. The algorithm will discard any configurations for which it was unable to retrieve at least the number of design variables. The objective and constraint entries are not required but if ALL are present, they will be recorded and the design will be tagged as evaluated so that evaluators may choose not to re-evaluate them.

Setting the size for this initializer has the effect of requiring a minimum number of designs to create. If this minimum number has not been created once the files are all read, the rest are created using the `unique_random` initializer and then the `simple_random` initializer if necessary. If more designs are found in the initialization files than specified by the initial size, then the initial size is ignored and all designs read out of the files are kept in the initial population.