Caching Constants and Operations: Difference between revisions

ProB can store the values of constants and operations in a cache file. Compared to memoization for functions, this caching is persistent across different runs of probcli or ProB Tcl/Tk and is applicable to the constant setup and operations, not at the level of (constant) functions. (It thus may make sense to activate both of these features.)

Activating Caching

In the command-line version probcli the cache can be activated using the option

• -cache DIRECTORY

This means that cache results will be stored in that directory. The directory may contain multiple files, namely one file per B machine. The files contain a hash to detect whether they are still up-to-date.

The same option has to be used to activate the caching for ProB Tcl/Tk, i.e., you need to launch ProB Tcl/Tk from the command-line with the -cache option:

• prob -cache DIRECTORY

Caching is currently only available for classical B machines without refinement, and when symmetry reduction is off (which it is by default). (Note to developers: the conditions are checked in the Prolog predicate cache_is_applicable in the module value_persistance.pl). The cache feature can, however, deal with composed machines (e.g., with INCLUDES, USES, SEES) and stores constant values for individual sub-machines. Constants are cached when

• no time-out occurred during SET_UP_CONSTANTS
• all enabled solutions were computed (i.e., the MAX_INITIALISATIONS limit was not reached)
• the machine has no parameters

Operations are cached when

• no time-out occurred
• all enabled operations were computed (i.e., the MAX_OPERATIONS limit was not reached)

The cache file will also contain the values of relevant preferences, which can influence the computation of constants or operation results (e.g., MAXINT, MININT, DEFAULT_SETSIZE,...) If the cache cannot be re-used a message will be displayed:

value caching: general computations parameters have changed, no re-use of stored operations

Inspecting the Cache

In the command-line version probcli a summary of the cache can be displayed using this option (together with the -cache option mentioned above).

• -show_cache

In verbose mode (-v flag) more details are displayed, but the additional information is probably only useful for ProB developers.

probcli CrewAllocationConstants.mch -cache cache/ -show-cache

Contents of cache file cache/CrewAllocationConstants.probcst of type constants for machine CrewAllocationConstants:
     ( male={(tom|->TRUE),(david|->TRUE),(jeremy|->TRUE),(carol|->FALSE),(janet|->FALSE),(tracy|->FALSE)} &
       speaks={(tom|->german),(david|->french),(jeremy|->german),(carol|->spanish),(janet|->french),(tracy|->spanish)} &
       assign={(1|->tom),(1|->david),(1|->jeremy),(1|->carol),(1|->janet),(1|->tracy),(2|->tom),(2|->david),(2|->carol),(3|->jeremy),(3|->janet),(3|->tracy)} )

In Tcl/Tk this information can be obtained by choosing the command "Show ProB Cache Info" in the Debug menu.