Support #10613
fhicl-dump should be able to accept absolute paths
Description
It would be very helpful for fhicl-dump to be able to accept an absolute file path as input (or relative to the pwd). I have a workaround with export MYPATH=/:$FHICL_FILE_PATH and -p MYPATH but it would be nice if this worked automatically.
History
#1 Updated by Kyle Knoepfel over 4 years ago
- Tracker changed from Bug to Support
- Status changed from New to Feedback
- Assignee set to Kyle Knoepfel
An important aspect of FHiCL is the concept of the policy--namely, what types of path patterns are accepted. To that end, the feature you request is already present in fhicl-dump. If you type fhicl-dump --help, you will see:
-l [ --lookup-policy ] arg (=1) lookup policy code:
0 => cet::filepath_maker
1 => cet::filepath_lookup
2 => cet::filepath_lookup_nonabsolute
3 => cet::filepath_lookup_after1
The default is 1, which, interestingly, is the only policy that does not support the absolute file specification. If you choose any other policy, you will get the behavior you desire (e.g.):
[> fhicl-dump -l 0 /home/knoepfel/scratch/build-fhicl-cpp-prof/test/save-restore-ba.d/ba.fcl Policy is 0; path is "FHICL_FILE_PATH" a: true b: true
We could do better documenting this. Please let me know if this is not sufficient to address your concern.
#2 Updated by Christopher Backhouse over 4 years ago
I wondered if one of the -l options did what I wanted. It would indeed be good to document these with english descriptions rather than what are presumably enums from inside the code.
#3 Updated by Kyle Knoepfel over 4 years ago
- Status changed from Feedback to Assigned
- % Done changed from 0 to 70
The printout has been improved to:
# Produced from 'fhicl-dump' using:
# Input : /home/knoepfel/scratch/build-fhicl-cpp-prof/test/save-restore-ba.d/ba.fcl
# Policy : cet::filepath_maker
# Path : "FHICL_FILE_PATH"
a: true
b: true
It is still incumbent on us to document what the particular policy means, but the information is now more explicit.
#4 Updated by Kyle Knoepfel 11 days ago
- % Done changed from 70 to 100
- Target version set to 3.06.00
- Status changed from Assigned to Resolved
Well, it only took 3.5 years to finish the documentation here, but I've finally bit the bullet. The documentation will be provided as part of the fhicl-dump command-line interface:
$ fhicl-dump -h
fhicl-dump [-c] <file>
Options:
-h [ --help ] produce this help message
-c [ --config ] arg input file
...
-l [ --lookup-policy ] arg (=permissive)
lookup policy code (see
'--supported-policies')
And then providing the --supported-policies command-line option:
$ fhicl-dump --supported-policies
The following file-lookup policies are supported:
'after1'
No lookup for the first file, and only lookup is performed
for all subsequent files.
'all'
Lookup is performed for all files presented to the filepath-
making object.
'nonabsolute'
Lookup is performed only for files that are not absolute--
i.e. file names not beginning with the '/' character.
'none'
No lookup is done for any files.
'permissive'
The first file can be an absolute path, a path relative to '.',
or a path that can be looked up; all subsequent files must be
looked up. This is the policy used by the art framework; it is
sometimes referred to as the first-absolute-or-lookup-with-dot
policy.
Please let us know if further clarification can be provided.