This chapter discusses using the Abaqus Scripting Interface to write user scripts. Abaqus makes every attempt to be backward compatible and can execute most Abaqus Scripting Interface scripts from previous releases of Abaqus. However, backward compatibility is not guaranteed beyond several releases of Abaqus, and it is recommended that you upgrade your commands to the most recent release. A complete list of Abaqus Scripting Interface commands that have changed is included in in the Abaqus Scripting Reference Manual. This chapter provides an overview of the following enhancements:

• “Expanded object coverage for definition of custom kernel data,” Section 16.1

• “Descriptive header in the journal file,” Section 16.2

• “Abaqus PDE improvements,” Section 16.3

• “Skipping the last command during session recovery,” Section 16.4

• “Faster tab completion,” Section 16.5

• “Selected errors now classified as an AbaqusExceptionType,” Section 16.6

• “Better control over writing messages to the journal file,” Section 16.7

• “Reformatting commands in Python files with proper indentation,” Section 16.8

• “Improved message handling and reporting of plug-ins,” Section 16.9

• “Stop button for scripts,” Section 16.10