4.1 Factors Affecting File Search

Cold searches in a number of places for files. There are three things that affect where it searches:

• The current directory (i.e. the directory from which the program was executed).
• The main search directory [controlled by the ROOTSEARCHDIR variable, which is set at compile time (see Installation) by setting either the ROOTSEARCHDIR or mainsearchdir variable when running make and make install]. This is the directory into which the default files are installed, so this is where Cold will search for model files, parameter files, etc.
• The --path commandline option (see -path). This is automatically set from the .variables file (which can be configured at installation, or manually after installation). It can be changed by the commandline options, or another variable file (see Variables). The default path includes directories Models and Data. These are necessary for finding several default files, so if you want to modify the path, you should probably include these directories.

The file searching algorithm searches in all of the following places, in this order:

• The current directory (i.e. the directory from which the program was executed).
• The main search directory. By default this is the subdirectory cold of your home directory. It is the directory in which Cold installed its default files.
• Subdirectories of the current directory indicated by the search path (input from the command line using the --path option (see -path), or from some variable file (see Variables).
• Subdirectories of the main search directory indicated by the search path (input from the command line using the --path option (see -path), or from some variable file (see Variables).

Actually, the last two are interleaved, so it goes through each directory in the search path, and searches in that subdirectory of the current directory, then that subdirectory of the main search directory.

COLD opens the first match for the file in question, so for example, by putting a file in the current directory, you can effectively override the file in a later search directory.