Intialize() and Shutdown() methods

[NMeseth]

Hello,

I am wondering what exactly the two methods initialize() and shutdown() are for? When are they called by Simio, especially in the context of running experiments, scenarios and replications.

What is the difference between the element's constructor and the initialize() method. What are examples for using the two methods?

Thanks

Nicolas

[adrianloetscher]

There is some very important thing about these methods. It seams that the life of an element can be longer than the life of the parent object of the element. If an entity gets destroyed, the element can get reused if a new entity is created.

It seams that all the member variables of the element, that are not managed by Simio, must be cleared or initialized in the Shutdown()-Method. Otherwhise the model behaves strange and the debugging get's very time-consuming. It's what happened with me.