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BenchExec: Tool Integration

In order to know how to execute a tool and how to interpret its output, benchexec needs a tool-specific Python module with functions for creating the appropriate command-line arguments for a run etc. (called "tool info").

BenchExec already provides such ready-to-use modules for some common tools. If your tool is in that list, you do not need to do anything special. Simply use the name of the tool-info module (without .py suffix) as the value of the tool attribute of the <benchmark> tag.

Note that BenchExec needs to be able to find the executable of the tool, of course. The easiest way to achieve this is to specify the directory of the tool with the parameter --tool-directory on the command line. If this parameter is not given, BenchExec searches in the directories of the PATH environment variable and in the current directory. Thus one can also execute BenchExec directly inside the directory of the tool, or adjust PATH accordingly:

PATH=/path/to/tool/directory:$PATH benchexec ...

To debug problems if BenchExec cannot find your tool, use our test utility described below.

Writing a Tool-Info Module

For tools that are not supported out-of-the-box by BenchExec, the tool info needs to be defined. This is typically just a few lines of Python code. If you write such a module, please consider sending us a pull request with it such that we can include it in BenchExec.

Tool-info modules need to define a class named Tool that inherits from one of the classes in the module benchexec.tools.template. For compatibility with older tool-info modules, several such classes exist, but new tool-info modules should inherit from the latest class, benchexec.tools.template.BaseTool2 (for updating older tool-info modules, cf. our migration guide) at the end of this document.

The template module also contains the full documentation on how to write such a tool-info module. In the following we provide a short summary. You can also look at the other existing tool-info modules to see examples.

A minimal tool info needs to overwrite the functions executable and name. If the tool gives true / false answers or customized errors should be shown, the method determine_result needs to be overwritten. It is recommended to also overwrite the function version if the tool has a version that can be automatically extracted. A Python doc string (example) should be added to the Tool class with the full name and URL of the tool. In this doc string there should also be any additional information about the tool-info module, such as its supported features or whether it adds or requires certain command-line parameter of the tool.

Overwrite the functions cmdline and working_directory, and environment to adjust the respective values, e.g., to add the name of a given property file to the command-line options.

Overwriting the function get_value_from_output will allow you to add <column> tags with custom values to your table-definition files, and table-generator will extract the respective values from the output of your tool using this function.

If a tool-info module encounters a request that it cannot handle (e.g., because a tool does not support runs without property files, but no property file was given), the tool-info module should raise benchexec.tools.template.UnsupportedFeatureException with an appropriate message for the user.

Note that the tool-info module itself and any commands it starts will be executed in its own container similar to the actual runs (except if --no-container is used). This means that the tool-info module typically has no network access and that any changes made to files will not be seen by the actual runs.

Specifying a Tool for BenchExec

The name of the tool-info module needs to be given to benchexec as the value of the attribute tool of the tag <benchmark> of a benchmark-definition file (note that runexec does not use tool infos).

Any of the supplied tool infos can be referenced with its simple name (file name without .py suffix).

If you have checked out BenchExec from source and added your tool info to the benchexec/tools/ directory, also use the simple name. If you have put your tool info as a module somewhere else on the Python search path, you must specify the full name of the Python module including its package(s). Note that tool-info modules that are not in a package are not supported.

Testing the Tool Integration

In order to allow testing a tool info (either self-written or supplied with BenchExec) and your installation (i.e., whether BenchExec can find your tool), we provide a small utility that uses a given tool info just like it would be done during benchmarking, and prints all the information provided by the tool info, for example which executable is used and in which path it lies, how the command line is constructed etc.

To execute this utility, run

python3 -m benchexec.test_tool_info <TOOL> [--debug] [--tool-output <OUTPUT_FILE>] ...

<TOOL> is the name of a tool-info module as it would be given in the tool attribute of the <benchmark> tag. If necessary, change to the appropriate directory or adjust PATH as described above.

The optional flag --tool-output activates testing of the function determine_result that should analyze the tool output. If specified, this option needs to be given at least one file with example output of the tool.

If the utility runs successfully and its output looks sane (i.e., correct paths, command line, etc.), then BenchExec should also be able to successfully run the tool.

Examples

If you have installed BenchExec successfully, the following command should work and print information about the fake tool dummy supplied with BenchExec:

python3 -m benchexec.test_tool_info dummy

If container mode is not working on your system, adjust the directory modes as necessary or add --no-container.

If you have written your own info for a tool foobar as a Python module named tools.foobar (this means you have created a directory tools with an empty file __init__.py and a file foobar.py with the tool info), the following command tests it:

python3 -m benchexec.test_tool_info tools.foobar

This assumes that the package tools is already in your Python search path, for example because it is inside the current directory. If not, you can extend the search path by specifying the parent directory of the package directory in the PYTHONPATH environment variable.

Migrating Tool-Info Modules to new API

It is recommended to upgrade tool-info modules that do not yet inherit from BaseTool2 in order to be able to take advantage of new features like --tool-directory. Upgrading should be straight forward in most cases because the general structure of the APIs defined by BaseTool and BaseTool2 is the same. The following assumes familiarity with the API of BaseTool and explains the differences of BaseTool2, it can serve as a step-by-step migration guide. Everything not mentioned does not need to be changed.

  • General remarks: Tool-info modules should not rely on any part of BenchExec except for what is defined within the BaseTool2 class and the necessary benchexec.result.RESULT_* constants. Everything else is subject to change. In particular, benchexec.util should no longer be imported.
  • Class definition: The tool-info module's class now needs to inherit from benchexec.tools.template.BaseTool2.
  • Method executable: This method now has one parameter, tool_locator. Instead of calling benchexec.util.find_executable(), call tool_locator.find_executable(). If the executable is expected in a subdirectory like bin, pass the executable name on its own and use the parameter subdir (Example: tool_locator.find_executable("foo", subdir="bin") instead of util.find_executable("foo", "bin/foo").) If the executable cannot be found, executable should raise ToolNotFoundException now (tool_locator.find_executable() does that automatically).
  • Method cmdline: Previously it was common to have default values for some parameters, this is no longer recommended.
    • The parameters tasks and propertyfile have been replaced with one parameter task that contains an instance of BaseTool2.Task. An exact replacement of tasks is list(task.input_files_or_identifier), though many tool-info modules can use task.input_files instead to automatically fail if the current task has no input files. The property file is available as task.property_file.
    • Task-definition files can now contain additional arbitrary information in a key named options. Whatever is contained in this key is passed to the method cmdline as task.options, whereas the parameter options continues to contain the parameters defined in the benchmark definition within <option> tags.
    • The parameter rlimits is now a proper object instead of a dict, cf. documentation of BaseTool2.ResourceLimits.
  • Method determine_result: There is now only a single parameter run that contains an instance of BaseTool2.Run.
    • The command line of the run is now available as run.cmdline.
    • The parameter returncode was replaced by run.exit_code.value, which is None instead of 0 if the tool was terminated by a signal.
    • The parameter returnsignal was replaced by run.exit_code.signal, which is None instead of 0 if the tool terminated itself.
    • The parameter output was replaced by an instance of BaseTool2.RunOutput in run.output. This is still a sequence of strings, but without line separators, so calling strip() while iterating through it is often no longer necessary and code like "result line" in run.output works as expected. RunOutput also has additional utility methods.
    • The parameter isTimeout was replaced by run.was_timeout, but more information is now available as run.was_terminated and run.termination_reason.
  • Method get_value_from_output: The parameter lines (list of strings with line separators) was replaced by the parameter output that contains an instance of BaseTool2.RunOutput (list of strings without line separators plus utility methods) like for determine_result.