[pyenergyplus] EnergyPlus output not flushed to eplusout.err

[antoine-galataud]

Issue overview

When error occurs early, eplusout.err doesn't get populated as it would be when called directly from command line.

Example:

import shlex

from pyenergyplus.api import EnergyPlusAPI

if __name__ == "__main__":
    api = EnergyPlusAPI()
    api.runtime.run_energyplus(
        api.state_manager.new_state(),
        shlex.split("-d /tmp/output -w weather.epw wrong_eplus_version.idf"))

After run, eplusout.err is present in /tmp/output but is empty.

Now if you run this from command line:

/usr/local/EnergyPlus-9-4-0/energyplus \
  -d /tmp/output2 \
  -w weather.epw \
  wrong_eplus_version.idf

You get expected output in eplusout.err:

Program Version,EnergyPlus, Version 9.4.0-998c4b761e, YMD=2021.01.25 16:55,
   ** Severe  ** <root>[LifeCycleCost:UsePriceEscalation][LifeCycleCost:UsePriceEscalation 2][resource] - "FuelOil#1" - Failed to match against any enum values.
   ** Warning ** Version: in IDF="9.2" not the same as expected="9.4"
   **  Fatal  ** Errors occurred on processing input file. Preceding condition(s) cause termination.
   ...

This seems to be a buffer flushing issue, since if simulation runs longer error file gets properly populated.

Details

• Platform: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
• Version of EnergyPlus: v9.4.0

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