If auto execution is enabled when creating an xFoil AIM, the AIM will execute xFoil just-in-time with the command line:

xfoil < xfoilInput.txt > xfoilOutput.txt

where preAnalysis generated the file "xFoilInput.txt" which contains the input information.

The analysis can be also be explicitly executed with caps_execute in the C-API or via Analysis.runAnalysis in the pyCAPS API.

Calling preAnalysis and postAnalysis is NOT allowed when auto execution is enabled.

Auto execution can also be disabled when creating an xFoil AIM object. In this mode, caps_execute and Analysis.runAnalysis can be used to run the analysis, or xFoil can be executed by calling preAnalysis, system call, and posAnalysis as demonstrated below with a pyCAPS example:

print ("\n\preAnalysis......")
xfoil.preAnalysis()
 
print ("\n\nRunning......")
xfoil.system("xfoil < xfoilInput.txt > xfoilOutput.txt"); # Run via system call
 
print ("\n\postAnalysis......")
xfoil.postAnalysis()