DOLFIN-CONVERT(1)

💅 dolfin-convert — the glow-up your mesh files have been waiting for 💅

okay so bestie, real talk: this page comes from the General Commands Manual and it's literally the manual for dolfin-convert. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let me tell you about it.

✨ NAME ✨

dolfin-convert — convert to DOLFIN XML format 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

dolfin-convert [OPTIONS] ... input.x output.y

like. you hand it an input file, you hand it an output file, and it does the thing. main character energy fr fr. 👑

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -h, --help — shows you the help text and then dips. that's it, that's the whole job. 💅
• -i format, --input format — tells it what format the input is, so it doesn't have to guess. 🧚
• -o format, --output format — same vibe but for the format you want coming out the other end. 🌸

🌈 the formats it speaks 🌈

here's the whole roster, no gatekeeping:

• xml — DOLFIN XML mesh format (current) ✨
• xml-old — DOLFIN XML mesh format (DOLFIN 0.6.2 and earlier)
• mesh — Medit, generated by tetgen with option -g
• gmsh — Gmsh, version 2.0 file format
• metis — Metis graph file format
• scotch — Scotch graph file format
• diffpack — Diffpack tetrahedral grid format
• abaqus — Abaqus tetrahedral grid format
• ExodusII — Sandia Format (requires ncdump utility from NetCDF)
• NetCDF — NetCDF format (requires ncdump utility from NetCDF)
• StarCD — StarCD terahedral grid format

not me pointing out that ExodusII and NetCDF are highkey needy — they both want the ncdump utility from NetCDF to even function. know that before you commit. 😭

🦋 if you don't say anything, it reads your vibes (aka your suffixes) 🦋

if --input or --output aren't specified, the format gets deduced from the suffix, like this:

• .xml — xml
• .mesh — mesh
• .gmsh — gmsh
• .msh — gmsh
• .gra — metis
• .grf — scotch
• .grid — diffpack
• .inp — abaqus
• .e — ExodusII
• .exo — ExodusII
• .ncdf — NetCDF
• .vrt — StarCD
• .cell — StarCD

so yeah, the file extension is basically doing a vibe check and the program trusts it. iconic behavior honestly. 💜

💀 BUGS 💀

found something cursed? got a comment, a question, a bug report, whatever? send it all to dolfin@lists.launchpad.net. they want to hear it, fr fr. 🙈

👑 AUTHOR 👑

dolfin-convert was originally written by Anders Logg <logg@simula.no>. several other people contributed to add support for different mesh formats — a whole collaborative slay. this manual page was written by Johannes Ring <johannr@simula.no>. 🫶

and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs. this was the DOLFIN-CONVERT(1) page out of the General Commands Manual — so go forth, convert those meshes, and be the main character of your own terminal. ⭐ 🌈 🎀