Difference between "scalarField" and "const scalar"
 

Hi everyone,

I am making a new boundary type for the inlet temperature by referring the "parabolicVelocityFvPatchVectorField" and "AblVelInletFvPatchVectorField".

I got confused with the "scalarField" & "const scalar" in the .H and .C files. What is the difference between them?

Can anyone show it with example?

Thanks soo much

A scalar is basically a double or float depending on your compiler settings (roughly speaking). The const in front of a type declaration is just a C++ qualifier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Const_...programming%29

A scalarField is as field of scalars, as the name says. :) To stay in OpenFOAM terms a scalarField is basically a List of scalar (with some addons), where a List is OpenFOAM's own array template class.
So, in a general C++ context you could see it as a array of double (roughly speaking).

And since I guess that your next question would be: What is a volScalarField?
Here the answer: A volScalarField is a scalarField defined on the computational mesh. This means a that the size of a volScalarField is equal to the mesh size, hence the values in a volScalarField are linked to the cells in the computational mesh.

Hope this helps to clear things up.

Cheers,
Armin

P.S.: These are very rough explanations to get you started and are by far not complete descriptions.

Hi Armin,

Thanks so much for your reply.
It is very helpful.

Sincerely,
Yi

Hi Armin, Thanks so much for your reply. It is very helpful. Sincerely, Yi
 

Hi Armin,

Thanks so much for your reply.
It is very helpful.

Sincerely,
Yi