fstiehle / owl_inspector

GUI to visualize SWI CLP(FD) programs

Owl Inspector is a web based visualization software for SWI-Prolog’s CLP(FD) library.

Take a look at the examples folder to get a quick overview of what's possible.

Quickstart

Install

Prerequisites: npm & SWI Prolog both available, for example, via bower. Install via npm install (In the directory). Run npm run or gulp run once.

Hello world

Start the server with npm run or gulp run. Once this is done once, the server can be started via gulp webserver. The GUI can be accessed at: http://localhost:8080/

The owl_tracer module exposes a set of annotations that can be used by a CLP program to annotate certain parts of the program and collect data on its execution.

You can use the following predicates to annotate your program.

• '📌'/1
• '📌'/2
• owl_trace/1
• owl_trace/2

'📌'/2 or owl_trace/2 need to be called before anything else with all the variables that need to be traced. All variables need to be assigned names. See the docs for more info and a way to automatically generate names.

:- use_module(library(clpfd)).
:- use_module(tracer/owl_tracer).

sendmore(L):-
  L = [S,E,N,D,M,O,R,Y],
  '📌'(L, ['S','E','N','D','M','O','R','Y']),
  '📌'(L ins 0..9),
  '📌'(S #\= 0),
  '📌'(M #\= 0),
  '📌'(all_different(L)),
  '📌'(1000*S + 100*E + 10*N + D
	  + 1000*M + 100*O + 10*R + E
	  #= 10000*M + 1000*O + 100*N + 10*E + Y).

Use owl_send/0 to start a socket connection and send the trace to the GUI.

?- sendmore(L), labeling([], L), owl_send.

Use owl_clean/0 to flush the trace before running the program again.

3D Propagation view

Each bar depicts the state of one variable at a given timestamp

• The height of the bar represents its domain size
• timestamps progress along the x-axis
• variables are arranged along the y-axis

Tracer

Access the tracer's docs in docs/owl_tracer.html

Hosting the GUI yourself

All the necessary files of the GUI are contained in the gui/dist folder once npm run or gulp run or gulp build is executed. This represents a static web page and can be hosted on every server. The socket address in tracer/owl_server as well as in gui/src/renderer/components/Layout.jsx need to be adopted.

owl_inspector's Issues

Forward JSON to render process and process it, output to log

Associate names to variables

• Use attributed values to listen on variable unification (Really necessary?)
• apply name as attribute

Custom scroll bar

Set up test driven dev for prolog

Code refactoring

term_variables(Goal, Vars),
var_names(Vars, Names),

In trace constraint and trace labeling can be done one predicate call earlier?

Data exchange format?

#Prolog <-> GUI

• Tree representation
• Multiple children
• Prolog DCG

Add domain size to json

Document Prolog code

prolog socket communication

• One way data transfer via sockets

• socket module

trace() function to trace arbitrary predicate

• Use meta interpreter: https://www.metalevel.at/acomip/

3D constraint propagation view

Domain data extraction

• http://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=overrule
• http://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=reexport

except([pred/1 as mypred])

Split logic of constraint propagation and enumeration

Seperate URL?

• current impl should only be used for constraint propagation
• Use attr_hook to construct enumeration tree
• reflect that in the fact names

Currenty:

tracepoint_constraint/5,
tracepoint_labeling/4,
constraint/2.

Rename ConstraintView component

Share file

• Use file system OR socket?

Socket would ping or receive JSON file
Advantages / Disadvantages?

Communicate with Prolog

• start server listening on port

Start swipl as child process

• Open swipl as child process

$ swipl -l foo.pl -t start_up
And let the user choose the startup predicate in the menu
OR
$ swipl < test.pl
And provide a seperate textfield for queries

• Save queries to GUI data structure, allow program to generate example queries via predicate.

TDD Prolog

Constraint Propagation view label color

textStyle : { color: "#fffff" },
doesn't work