Because many of the methods implemented in Colvars are history-dependent, a state file is often needed to continue a long simulation over consecutive runs. Such state file is written automatically at the end of any simulation with Colvars, and contains data accumulated during that simulation along with the step number at the end of it. The step number read from the state file is then used to control such time-dependent biases: because of this essential role, the step number internal to Colvars may not always match the step number reported by the MD program that carried during the simulation (which may instead restart from zero each time).
Depending on the configuration, a state file may need to be loaded issued at the beginning of a new simulation when time-dependent biasing methods are applied (moving restraints, metadynamics, ABF, ...). . After initialization, a state file may be loaded at any time with the Tcl command cv load.
It is possible to load a state file even if the configuration has changed: for example, new variables may be defined or restraints be added in between consecutive runs. For each newly defined variable or bias, no information will be read from the state file if this is unavailable: such new objects will remain uninitialized until the first compute step. Conversely, any information that the state file has about variables or biases that are not defined any longer is silently ignored. Because these checks are done by the names of variables or biases, it is the user's responsibility to ensure that these are consistent between runs.