External

The external dispatcher can be used to launch external processes that will handle the dispatch request. This can be seen as a very general dispatcher that abstract some parts of the optimization framework so that it becomes easier to write custom dispatchers. One example of using the external dispatcher is to evaluate a job in MATLAB. See table 3.9 for the dispatcher settings.

Table 3.9: External Dispatcher Settings

Name	Description
path	Path to the executable to use for evaluating the task
arguments	Arguments to provide to the executable
working-directory	The working directory in which to execute the external process
mode	The mode in which to describe and receive the task description. Can be either protobuf or text. The protobuf mode will send protobuf encoded messages, just as through the rest of the framework. The text mode will send tasks encoded in a simple text format. The default is protobuf (optional)
environment	Comma separated list of key=value environment variables to set in the environment in which to execute webots (optional)
persistent	Optional argument indicating the TCP port number to connect to to dispatch the task. You can use this if starting the environment in which you evaluate a task is expensive. If this is specified, the executable will be started the first time, and given the environment variable OPTIMIZATION_EXTERNAL_PERSISTENT, which contains the port number on which the external process should listen for tasks.
startup-delay	Specifies the number of seconds after which a connection should be established when the persistent executable is first launched (only relevant for persistent mode, optional)