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<div class="section" id="file-location">
<span id="index-0"></span><span id="id1"></span>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">We have seen so far that <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-ecf-server"><em class="xref std std-term">ecf_server</em></a> is looking for the files it needs in specific locations.</div>
<div class="line">You can control the location of your files by using the following <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-variable"><em class="xref std std-term">variable</em></a>&#8216;s</div>
</div>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>ECF_INCLUDE  Is where ECF will look for include files.
ECF_FILES    Is where ECF will look for the '.ecf' scripts if they are not at their default location.
ECF_OUT      Is where the job output files will go.</pre>
</div>
<div class="line-block">
<div class="line">If two tasks use the same <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-ecf-script"><em class="xref std std-term">ecf script</em></a>, and are simply using different values of the same <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-variable"><em class="xref std std-term">variable</em></a>&#8216;s,</div>
<div class="line">you do not want to maintain several copies of the same file.</div>
<div class="line">You can use the same script in multiple places within your <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-suite"><em class="xref std std-term">suite</em></a> and using the same name</div>
<div class="line">by keeping the script into a common directory and pointing to this location using the <a class="reference internal" href="/wiki/display/ECFLOW/Glossary#term-variable"><em class="xref std std-term">variable</em></a> ECF_FILES.</div>
<div class="line">Many users use just one directory for their scripts and point to this directory with ECF_FILES.</div>
</div>
<p>If the tasks have different names, you can use the unix command <strong class="command">ln -s</strong> to create several names for the same file.</p>
<p>What to do:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li>Try to imagine how we could use ECF_FILES and ln to reduce the number of scripts in our example suite</li>
</ol>
</div>