ABAQUS is executed by using the ABAQUS execution procedure. In the following discussion the command to run the execution procedure is assumed to be abaqus. However, you can customize the execution procedure to run ABAQUS using any alias you choose. (See the ABAQUS Installation and Licensing Guide for details.) The abaqus command is described in more detail in the following sections:
“Execution procedure for obtaining information,” Section 3.2.1
“Execution procedure for ABAQUS/Standard and ABAQUS/Explicit,” Section 3.2.2
“Execution procedure for ABAQUS HTML documentation,” Section 3.2.7
“Execution procedure for licensing utilities,” Section 3.2.8
“Execution procedure for ASCII translation of results (.fil) files,” Section 3.2.9
“Execution procedure for joining results (.fil) files,” Section 3.2.10
“Execution procedure for querying the keyword/problem database,” Section 3.2.11
“Execution procedure for fetching sample input files,” Section 3.2.12
“Execution procedure for making user-defined executables and subroutines,” Section 3.2.13
“Execution procedure for input file and output database upgrade utility,” Section 3.2.14
“Execution procedure for generating output database reports,” Section 3.2.15
“Execution procedure for network output database file connector,” Section 3.2.18
“Execution procedure for fixed format conversion utility,” Section 3.2.19
“Execution procedure for translating NASTRAN bulk data files to ABAQUS input files,” Section 3.2.20
“Execution procedure for exchanging ABAQUS data with ZAERO,” Section 3.2.23
“Execution procedure for encrypting and decrypting ABAQUS input data,” Section 3.2.24
“Execution procedures for job execution control,” Section 3.2.25
The following conventions are used in these sections:
Items in boldface are options. Options can appear in any order and can be abbreviated.
Default options are underlined (
).
Items enclosed in square brackets ([ ]) are optional.
Items appearing in a list separated by bars ( 
) are mutually exclusive.
One value must be selected from a list of values enclosed by curly brackets (
).
You must supply values in italics.
Blanks are used as separators between options and must not precede nor follow an equal sign.
An alternate syntax of -option value can be used instead of the option=value format.
The ABAQUS execution procedure uses “environment” settings to customize the execution of a job. These settings can be changed using the ABAQUS environment file, abaqus_v6.env. The execution procedure looks for this file in two places other than the installation location when running a job. The first place it looks is in your home directory. If it exists, the settings in this file will be applied to all jobs that you run. The second place the execution procedure looks is in the current directory. If the file exists, the settings defined there will be applied to all jobs run from that directory.
If the same job parameter is defined in more than one environment file or is defined more than once within the same environment file, the last definition encountered will be used. Some exceptions to this rule are noted in “Using the ABAQUS environment settings,” Section 3.3.1. These environment files can be used to customize the behavior of ABAQUS, including modification of the default options. See “Using the ABAQUS environment settings,” Section 3.3.1, for further information on the environment files.