available_ios

[manauref]

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An option in the C binding to query the adios object and get a list of available io objects (either their handles, or their names, maybe their names is better since we can get their handle with adios2_at_io).

Why is this feature important? An application where multiple objects perform io declarations may find it easier to first query whether that io has been declared already, rather than having to pass some kind of boolean to these objects telling them whether the io has been declared or not.

What is the potential impact of this feature in the community? Make adios2 use easier in complex applications

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. no

Describe the solution you'd like and potential required effort add adios2_available_ios, which returns a list of the names of io objects already declared.

Describe alternatives you've considered and potential required effort declaring new ios with different names, even though they are meant for identical I/O patterns.

[eisenhauer]

adios2_at_io would indeed work well if you have a limited set of IOs in play, or were looking to discover if the specific one to be used in a circumstance had already been initialized. I'm having trouble thinking of the use case where you'd not know the name of the one you wanted to use at some specific point. (I've actually never see even AtIO used in a real application. Mostly some small number of IOs are created as part of an initialization phase that might also include engine creation. I suspect that an application that is creating enough IOs that it's losing track of them is likely not to be in ADIOS's wheelhouse.)