Alternative of exit(-1)

[maksins]

For some elements in OpenSees (bearing elements), when the failure is encountered, the program crashes due to command exit(-1). This is fine for a single analysis, but when I am running multiple analysis in a loop, it creates me prolem. I was wondering if there's an alternative of exit(-1) command I could use in my element code, so that it stops the analysis without crashing OpenSees.exe and move on to the next analysis in the loop?

[fmk]

if the method is non-void return an error (a negative integer), if void, use a static variable to keep track of possible errors with the void methods and in an update or some method that will be called later during the analysis, return an error if the static variable has been set (resetting the variable before you actually return the error).

[maksins]

Thanks Frank,
I did what you suggested and I am able to proceed with my analysis. However, I was wondering if there was a way to return a specific error value, for example -7, to know if it fails due to buckling and not due to other solution algorithm convergence problems? Also, then I won't have to check with modified Newton Raphson with initial stiffness for convergence and I can directly get out of the loop.
I am using the following in my .cpp file to return a negative value:
[code]
if (tag==1) {
tag=0;
return -1; //return any negative integer
}
else {
return 0;
}
[/code]

And my analysis abort with following messages:

OpenSees > source call.tcl
ElastomericX element - Written by Manish Kumar, University at Buffalo, 2012
Gravity analysis completed SUCCESSFULLY
Domain::update - domain failed in update
Newmark::update() - failed to update the domain
WARNING NewtonRaphson::solveCurrentStep() -the Integrator failed in update()
DirectIntegrationAnalysis::analyze() - the Algorithm failed at time 2.73
OpenSees > analyze failed, returned: -3 error flag
regular newton failed .. lets try an initial stiffness for this step
Domain::update - domain failed in update
Newmark::update() - failed to update the domain
WARNING ModifiedNewton::solveCurrentStep() -the Integrator failed in update()
DirectIntegrationAnalysis::analyze() - the Algorithm failed at time 2.73
OpenSees > analyze failed, returned: -3 error flag
Transient analysis 1 completed FAILED with error code -3
OpenSees>

Can I return custom error values using TCL_Error? I don't know what files I will need to inherit for that in my .h and .cpp files. Right now, I can not use it.