H3LPR

Helper library for profiling, logging, and parsing.

Dependencies

• c++17 compiler (clang or others)
• Google Test: optional, only needed to compile the CI/CD testing

Build

To build the h3lpr library (and install it in PREFIX):

ARCH_FILE=make_arch/make.yours PREFIX=/your/prefix make install

# to build the tests (optional)
ARCH_FILE=make_arch/make.yours make test

Usage

Profiler

The profiler is used to insert timings from within the code. The impact on runtime should be very limited during the execution as the MPI-based computations only happen during the Disp function. When starting or ending a timer, only the function MPI_Wtime() is called.

To get some fancy colors when compiling, add the option -DCOLOR_PROF. You can also disable all the profiling using the option -DNO_PROF.

Profiler prof;

m_profStart(&prof,"step");
// do something
m_profStart(&prof,"substep");
// do something else, inside the something
m_profStop(&prof,"substep");
m_profStop(&prof,"step");

// here MPI calls will happen
m_profDisp(&prof);

In some cases it might be handy to initialize a profiler region without spending time in it. This is for example the case when using multiple ranks and conditions:

Profiler prof;

// prevent other ranks than 0 to not have the profiler entry
m_profInitLeave(&prof,"step");
if (rank ==0){
    m_profStart(&prof,"step");
    m_profStop(&prof,"step");
}

m_profDisp(&prof);

Parser

The parser can be used to read from the command line argument and/or from a configuration file.

We currently support:

• flags: --flag interpreted as a boolean
• arguments: --argument=value interpreted as a value

The way to used the parser can be summarized as below.

• first read the command line

Parser parser(argc,argv);

// add some flags + documentaton
bool is_flag = parser.GetFlag("--flag","the documentation of the flag");
double value = parser.GetValue<double>("--value","the documentation of the value",0.1);
auto values  = parser.GetValues<double,2>("--array","the documentation of the values",{0.1,0.2});

// display the help if needed
parser.Finalize();

In the command line, the use of the parser would then be

./program --flag --value=0.1 --array=1.7,2.9

In case you wish to display the possible flags, you can use the --help flag. This is performed during the Finalize execution.

Finally, you can also use a configuration file to avoid typing a long sequence of arguments. The file is given to the parser as --config=filename. The syntax would then be something like:

# this is a comment on the flag
--flag
# this is a comment on the value
--value=0.1
# this is a comment on the array
--array=1.7,2.9

Logging

The log is be used to print message in the output of the code with 3 flavors There are different ways of using it. The basic usage is the following

double pi = 3.1415;
m_log_def("pi is equal to %e", pi);

The output looks like:

[h3lpr] pi is equal to 3.1415

The format of the output follows the implementation of the standard.

By default, only the rank 0 of MPI_COMM_WORLD will print the message. To have all the ranks displaying the message, the code must be compiled with -DLOG_ALLRANKS.

To have a personalised header, we encourage you to define a macro in your code that wraps the default macro m_log_default. Here is the code snippet we used to define the logs of h3lpr:

#define m_log_h3lpr(format, ...)                   \
    ({                                             \
        m_log_def("h3lpr", format, ##__VA_ARGS__); \
    })

To perform a run without any log, you can compile the librairy with the -DLOG_MUTE flag.

asserts

The assert macros is defined similarly to the log-one: m_assert_def. The macro is disabled if the the file that includes the header is compiled with -DNDEBUG. If not, then the backtrace is printed right after the assertion message, unless disabled using -DNO_BTRACE.

⚠️ to ensure a readable naming information, we need the linker to have the following flags -rdynamic -ldl.

To use a personalized assertion, follow the same strategy as for the m_log_def:

#define m_assert_h3lpr(format, ...)                   \
    ({                                                \
        m_assert_def("h3lpr", format, ##__VA_ARGS__); \
    })