If your input lines get very long then editing them using vi and other such text editors becomes a massive pain in the arse.
We at PLUMED are aware of this fact and thus have provided a way of doing line continuations so as to make your life that much easier - aren't we kind? Well no not really, we have to use this code too. Anyway, you can do continuations by using the "..." syntax as this makes this:
dist: DISTANCES ATOMS1the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,300 ATOMS2the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,400 ATOMS3the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,500
(see DISTANCES)
equivalent to this:
dist: DISTANCES ... # we can also insert comments here ATOMS1the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,300 # multiple kewords per line are allowed ATOMS2the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,400 ATOMS3the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,500 #empty lines are also allowed ...
Notice that the closing ...
is followed by the word DISTANCES
. This is optional, but might be useful to find more easily which is the matching start of the statement. The following is equally correct
dist: DISTANCES ... # we can also insert comments here ATOMS1the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,300 # multiple kewords per line are allowed ATOMS2the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,400 ATOMS3the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,500 #empty lines are also allowed ...
Notice that PLUMED makes a check that the word following the closing ...
is actually identical to the first word in the line with the first ...
. If not, it will throw an error. Also notice that you might put more than one word in the first line. E.g.
dist: DISTANCES ... # we can also insert comments here ATOMS1the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,300 # multiple kewords per line are allowed ATOMS2the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,400 ATOMS3the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,500 #empty lines are also allowed ...
or, equivalently,
dist: DISTANCES ... # we can also insert comments here ATOMS1the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,300 # multiple kewords per line are allowed ATOMS2the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,400 ATOMS3the atoms involved in each of the distances you wish to calculate. =1,500 #empty lines are also allowed ...