Looking for Some Help with Job Array Dependencies in OpenPBS!

Developers
1

Hi everyone,

I am fairly new to OpenPBS and trying to understand how to properly set dependencies for a job array. I have a scenario where I submit a job array with something like qsub -J 1-10 myscript.sh…, and I want to make sure a separate post-processing job only starts after all jobs in the array have successfully completed.

From what I have read.., I believe the afterokarray or afterok dependency might be useful but I am unsure how to implement it correctly for an entire array. Also.., how can I make sure the post-processing script doesn’t run if even one of the array jobs fails: ??

Would appreciate if someone could walk me through the best way to handle this, especially from a production standpoint. Real-world examples or scripts would be super helpful !! I have also gone through this thread https://community.openpbs.org/t/understanding-array-jobs-salesforce-training-in-pune but still need some more help.

Thanks in advance for your time and guidance.

With Regards,
Marcelo

4

Job dependencies are not supported for subjobs or ranges of job array.

You would need to switch to standard jobs to use dependency.
Documenation: https://2025.help.altair.com/2025.2.0/PBS%20Professional/PBS2025.2.0.pdf
Section/page no: PBS Professional 2025.2 Reference Guide, RG-235

qsub –W depend=:<arg_lists> openpbs.sh
qsub -W depend=afterok:100.openpbs otherscript.sh
qsub -W depend=afterok:101.openpbs;102.openpbs theotherscript.sh

Note: Make sure job history is enabled
qmgr -c “set server job_history_enable=true”

Hope this helps