XML.Tools

Tools

AQUAgpusph can be pictured as a sandbox where the user can define a set of variables and a set of tools to process them. That is indeed the way AQUAgpusph achieves its high level of modularity.

The user can define how the variables are operated setting up a pipeline, which is nothing but a queue of tools to be executed.

To this end <Tool> elements can be added within <Tools> sections on the XML input files. Along this line, there are 2 clearly different things that are configured by the <Tool> element:

• How the tools are arranged
• What the tool should do

The former has to do with how the queue of tools should look like, while the latter has to do with the payload of the tool, or in other words what is executed to transform the variables.

Arranging the tools

Each <Tool> element can be used to insert, remove or replace one or more tools from the pipeline.

Also, some conditions can be set on the tools to control if they should be actually executed, as already documented here.

In any case a name attribute is mandatory for each <Tool> element. The name does not have to follow any special naming convention, so it might include spaces or special chars. It is though strongly recomended to do not use special characters that can be confused with wildcards.

Adding tools

To append new tools at the end of the pipeline simply use the attribute action="add" on the <Tool> element.

Inserting tools

To insert tools somewhere in between the pipeline the attributes action="insert" or action="try_insert" can be set on the <Tool> element. The difference between "insert" and "try_insert" is that the former will fail if the tool cannot be inserted --becuase the referenced place does not exists-- while the latter will only print a warning in such a case.

The place where the tool should be inserted can be defined in 2 ways:

• Setting the position place index with the at attribute. E.g. at="0" is inserting the tool at the beginning of the pipeline
• Referring another tool name, using the following attributes:
  • before: The tool will be inserted before the tool named with this attribute
  • before_prefix: The same than before, but the provided name is edited inserting the including prefix
  • after: The tool will be inserted after the tool named with this attribute
  • after_prefix: The same than after, but the provided name is edited inserting the including prefix

When using before, before_prefix, after or after_prefix, wildcards can be used so the tool will be inserted as many times as matching names are found.

Removing tools

With the attributes action="remove" and action="try_remove", tools can be dropped from the pipeline. The tools to be removed are referred by the attribute name, which might contain wildcards. If no matching names are found on the pipeline, action="remove" will fail and stop AQUAgpusph, while action="try_remove" will print a warning.

Replacing tools

With the attributes action="replace" and action="try_replace", tools can be replaced by different ones the pipeline. The tools to be replaced are referred by the attribute name, which might contain wildcards. If no matching names are found on the pipeline, action="replace" will fail and stop AQUAgpusph, while action="try_replace" will print a warning.

Available tools

Several types of tools can be considered on the pipeline, meant to operate on the different kind of variables --Scalars or Arrays--:

• Operators
  • Setting a Scalar value
  • Setting an Array constant value
  • Copy Arrays
  • Reduce an Array to a Scalar
  • OpenCL kernels to set values on Arrays
• Special
  • Link-List to can compute interactions
  • Sort an Array of unsigned integers
  • Sort an Array
• Extensions
  • Execute a Python script
  • Execute an installable C++ tool
• Reports
  • Print Scalars on the terminal prompt
  • Print Scalars to a file
  • Print Arrays to files
  • Save snapshots to files
  • Print performance details

There is an additional type of tool, called dummy, which is actually void, i.e. it is not executing any operation. dummy tools are usually considered as markers, so other presets might know when certain block of tools started and finished. dummy tools can be adeed setting the attribute type=dummy. No additional attributes are required.