A GraphViz generator for MOOSE input files

Input files for the Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) tend to become more and more complex as simulated systems are converging towards realistic scales. Especially when dealing with Multiapps, which are one of MOOSE's unique features, the rapidly become a mess. This makes dealing with them rather difficult and - in particular for beginners - getting an overview over the employed relationships between kernels, materials, variables, aux-objects, etc. is cumbersome.

This script generates GraphViz input files (known from the callgraph/dependency graph output of Doxygen) from input files for MOOSE applications. These graphs are particularly suitable for getting a quick overview on what goes on inside an input file.

Since the script has been hacked together in only few hours, it is still rather incomplete but already functional. For parsing the input file it makes use of the Python parser ParseGetPot.py from the MOOSE project that is also employed in the Peacock GUI.

Currently, due to limitations of the HTML parser of GraphViz, only svg output can make use of all features. However, you can convert svg-files to any other graphics file format, e.g. using Inkscape or (even simpler) CairoSVG.

Usage

Usage of the tool is pretty simple. Just give the filename of your MOOSE input file on the command line, e.g.

./ParseToGV.py ~/workspace/moose/examples/ex03_coupling/ex03.i

The resulting GraphViz script is then printed to stdout. An online conversion can be performed by redirecting the output to GraphViz via

./ParseToGV.py ~/workspace/moose/examples/ex03_coupling/ex03.i | dot -Tsvg > file.svg

Then, file.svg contains the produced graph.

Example

An example output for MOOSEs ex10.i file reads

For ex20.i, the output reads

Customization

There are not many customization options available, yet. However, some parameters, default values, etc. can already be tuned by modifying globaloptions, gv_globalpars, nodestyles, and edgestyles in ParseToGV.py.

• gv_globalpars contains the global GraphViz declarations such as default node and edge type, etc.
• nodestyles and edgestyles declare colors and other style options for specific node types such as [Variables], [Kernels], etc. and their connecting edges.
• globaloptions contains several knobs for fine-tuning the graph:
  • table_heading_style: HTML style for the parameter table headings.
  • maxlen_param, maxlen_value: Maximum length (number of characters) for parameter names/values in parameter tables.
  • connection_ports : If set to True, arrows point to entries in parameter tables. Otherwise, they point to the nodes.
  • use_splines : If True, splines are used for the edges. Otherwise orthogonal connectors.
  • includeparams : If False, parameter tables are not shown which reduces graph size considerably but also omits information.
  • showactive : If set to False, node's active parameters are ignored for the output (usually they make output a bit messy but do not add much information).
  • clusterstyle : Special style attributes for clusters (i.e. the large rectangles), in particular the position and formatting of the label.

Available options are documented there.

Advanced Usage

MOOSE example files

For getting an overview of all MOOSE example files, you might want to call (this version using open is for MacOS, changing it for Linux is trivial)

for file in ~/workspace/moose/examples/*/*.i; do ./ParseToGV.py $file | dot -Tsvg > ${file}.svg && open -a firefox ${file}.svg; done

MultiApps

MultiApps are also supported, the sub-App input files are parsed automatically (if they can be found by the script). You still only have to use

./ParseToGV.py master_app.i

A rather complex example is composed of delta_real_parameters.i and delta_real_parameters_sub.i and yields

Known Issues

• Comments are currently completely ignored.
• Found another problem? - Please report an Issue - ideally with a minimal example of the offending input file. 😄