This part set variables which can be used both inside this file as you can see in next parts, but also in ProActive descriptor file.

TimIt offer a nice tool to deal with variables and redundancy : the sequences variables

These variables are very useful to reduce your configuration file size and its management.

A sequence is a list of values for a variable. In our example, NP is a sequence variable which have values 4 and 8 and the benchmark tag will be expanded into two benchmark tags : one with NP value set to 4 and the other with NP value set to 8.

If sequence variables are used in a Serie's attribute, you will expand this Serie into as tags as you have values in your sequence.

For example, these two examples are equivalents :

<timit>

  <globalVariables>
    <descriptorVariable name="ALGO" value="Algo1,Algo2"/>
    <descriptorVariable name="NP"   value="4,8"/>
    <descriptorVariable name="TEST" value="#1"/>
  </globalVariables>

  <serie (...) result="${ALGO}">
    <benchmarks>
      <benchmark name="Test ${TEST} : algo ${ALGO} on ${NP} nodes" (...)/>
    </benchmarks>
  </serie>

</timit>

<timit>

  <globalVariables>
    <descriptorVariable name="TEST" value="#1"/>
  </globalVariables>
  
  <serie (...) result="Algo1">
    <benchmarks>
      <benchmark name="Test #1 : algo Algo1 on 4 nodes" (...)/>
      <benchmark name="Test #1 : algo Algo1 on 8 nodes" (...)/>
    </benchmarks>
  </serie>
  
  <serie (...) result="Algo2">
    <benchmarks>
      <benchmark name="Test #1 : algo Algo2 on 4 nodes" (...)/>
      <benchmark name="Test #1 : algo Algo2 on 8 nodes" (...)/>
    </benchmarks>
  </serie>

</timit>

Important :

Sequences variables are not handled by ProActive descriptor files, so do not use same names for ProActive descriptor and sequence variable names to avoid bad overwriting. To do it, you should prefer overwriting in benchmark tag like this :

<benchmark name="Test ${TEST} : algo ${ALGO} on ${NP} nodes" (...) >
  <descriptorVariable name="NBNODES" value="${NP} />
</benchmark>

Note :

You can use sequences without using variables with #{...} pattern :

<benchmark name="Test ${TEST} : algo #{Algo1,Algo2} on ${NP} nodes" (...) >
  <descriptorVariable name="NBNODES" value="${NP} />
</benchmark>

A Serie represent a suite of benchmarks. For example, if you want to benchmark two algorithms with different parameters each, you can specify two Series (one for each algorithm) and then specify different benchmarks for all parameters.

Description of the attributes :

Here you specify parameters for the charts. Those charts will be generated thanks to benchmark results.

Description of the attributes :

Other attributes are chart's type specific :

Other attributes are chart's type specific :

Define the suite of tests with different parameters. Each test will generate a result file and an entry in chart.

Description of the attributes :

In addition to these attributes, you can specify descriptorVariable tags which will be copied into generated ProActive deployment descriptor file.

Here is a complete example of a configuration file :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<timit>       
    
  <!-- GLOBAL VARIABLES DEFINITION
       Will replace those in ProActive deployment descriptor -->
  <globalVariables>
    <descriptorVariable name="VMARGS" value="-Xmx32M -Xms32M" />
    <descriptorVariable name="CLASS_PREFIX"
                        value="org.objectweb.proactive.examples.timit" />
    <descriptorVariable name="NP" value="4,8" />
    <descriptorVariable name="RUN" value="1" />
    <descriptorVariable name="WARMUP" value="0" />
  </globalVariables>


  <!-- Running example2 suite and generate different charts -->
  <serie descriptorBase="${PROJECT_PATH}/descriptors/TimIt.xml"
         result="${PROJECT_PATH}/results/example2.4-8.xml"
         class="${CLASS_PREFIX}.example2.Launcher">

    <charts>
      <chart type="HierarchicalBarChart"
             filter="total,init,foo"
             title="Example2 on 4 and 8 nodes"
             subtitle="Timing values" width="800" height="600"
             xaxislabel="Benchmarks" yaxislabel="Time in seconds"
             filename="${PROJECT_PATH}/results/example2.Timing" />
      <chart type="MatrixChart"
             eventName="commPattern"
             title="Example2"
             subtitle="Communications pattern"
             xaxislabel="Receiver rank" yaxislabel="Sender rank"
             scalemode="logarithmic" legendFormatMode="pow2"
             filename="${PROJECT_PATH}/results/example2.Pattern" />
      <chart type="Line2dChart"
             tag="events" filter="nbComms" attribute="avg"
             title="Example2"
             subtitle="Total number of communications"
             xaxislabel="Benchmarks" yaxislabel="Nb communications"
             filename="${PROJECT_PATH}/results/example2.nbComms" />
    </charts>

    <benchmarks>
      <benchmark name="Example2 ${NP}"
                 run="${RUN}" warmup="${WARMUP}" timeout="100"
                 descriptorGenerated="${PROJECT_PATH}/descriptors/generated.xml"
                 removeExtremums="true"
                 note="My first test"
                 parameters="${PROJECT_PATH}/descriptors/generated.xml ${NP}"
                 output="${PROJECT_PATH}/results/example2-${NP}.xml">
        <descriptorVariable name="NODES" value="${NP}" />
        <descriptorVariable name="TIMIT_ACTIVATE"
                 value="total,init,work,end,foo,densityPattern,commPattern,nbComms"/>
      </benchmark>
    </benchmarks>
  </serie>

</timit>