Output file names with [conflict]

I have a simulation that runs a lot of iterations at multiple design points. There are three nested loops to run through the complete set of configurations. Each one is independent, so to speed things up a bit I made the outer loop a parfor.

At the conclusion of each iteration of the innermost loop, the results are written out to a text file. The code looks like

FileIDResults = -1;
while FileIDResults == -1
     FileIDResults = fopen('plus_plus_resources.txt', 'a');
end

fprintf(FileIDResults, '%3d, %6.5f, %6.5f, %6.5f \r\n', RunNumber, PlusPlusResourcesAlpha, DepartureRate, PlusPlusResourcesScore);

fclose(FileIDResults);
FileIDResults = -1;

This has always worked fine for me...but this time around I wound up with several output files

plus_plus_resources.txt plus_plus_resources [conflict].txt plus_plus_resources [conflict 1].txt

So at this point I have two questions: 1. Most immediately, can I just cat these together to get the complete output set? Or is there likely to be some overlap, or what? It took almost 48 hours to do the complete run, so I'd really like to not have to do it all over again.

2. I'm assuming this is because two workers tried to write to the file at the same time? If that's the case, is there a better way to handle the file control? I'd prefer not to have each worker write to its own file...but if that's the best way then so be it.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Edric Ellis]

The best way really is to have each worker write a separate file, especially if you're on Windows. The simplest way is to use the Worker Object Wrapper. There's an example in the help text there showing you how to do that.