DUMPFORCES
This is part of the generic module

Dump the force acting on one of a values in a file.

For a CV this command will dump the force on the CV itself. Be aware that in order to have the forces on the atoms you should multiply the output from this argument by the output from DUMPDERIVATIVES. Furthermore, also note that you can output the forces on multiple quantities simultaneously by specifying more than one argument. You can control the buffering of output using the FLUSH keyword.

Examples

The following input instructs plumed to write a file called forces that contains the force acting on the distance between atoms 1 and 2.

Click on the labels of the actions for more information on what each action computes
tested on v2.8
distance: DISTANCE 
ATOMS
the pair of atom that we are calculating the distance between.
=1,2 DUMPFORCES
ARG
the input for this action is the scalar output from one or more other actions.
=distance
STRIDE
compulsory keyword ( default=1 ) the frequency with which the forces should be output
=1
FILE
compulsory keyword the name of the file on which to output the forces
=forces
Glossary of keywords and components
Compulsory keywords
STRIDE ( default=1 ) the frequency with which the forces should be output
FILE the name of the file on which to output the forces
FMT ( default=%15.10f ) the format with which the derivatives should be output
Options
ARG the input for this action is the scalar output from one or more other actions. The particular scalars that you will use are referenced using the label of the action. If the label appears on its own then it is assumed that the Action calculates a single scalar value. The value of this scalar is thus used as the input to this new action. If * or *.* appears the scalars calculated by all the proceeding actions in the input file are taken. Some actions have multi-component outputs and each component of the output has a specific label. For example a DISTANCE action labelled dist may have three components x, y and z. To take just the x component you should use dist.x, if you wish to take all three components then use dist.*.More information on the referencing of Actions can be found in the section of the manual on the PLUMED Getting Started. Scalar values can also be referenced using POSIX regular expressions as detailed in the section on Regular Expressions. To use this feature you you must compile PLUMED with the appropriate flag. You can use multiple instances of this keyword i.e. ARG1, ARG2, ARG3...
RESTART allows per-action setting of restart (YES/NO/AUTO)
UPDATE_FROM Only update this action from this time
UPDATE_UNTIL Only update this action until this time