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soar

Commands and settings related to running Soar

Synopsis

====== Soar General Commands and Settings =====
soar ?                                             Print this help listing
soar init                                          Re-initializes current state of Soar
soar stop [--self]                                 Stop Soar execution
soar version                                       Print version number of Soar
----------------- Settings --------------------
max-elaborations                            100    Maximum elaboration in a decision cycle
max-goal-depth                               23    Maximum goal stack depth
max-nil-output-cycles                        15    Impasse only after this many nil outputs
max-dc-time                                   0    Maximum time per decision
max-memory-usage                      100000000    Threshold for memory warning (see help)
max-gp                                    20000    Maximum rules gp can generate
stop-phase                                apply    Phase before which Soar will stop
timers                                       on    Whether to profile where Soar spends its time
wait-snc                                    off    Wait after state-no-change
-----------------------------------------------

To change a setting:                               soar <setting> [<value>]
For a detailed explanation of these settings:      help soar

Summary View

Using the soar command without any arguments will display a summary of Soar's current state of execution and which capabilities of Soar are enabled:

=======================================================
                     Soar 9.6.0 Summary
=======================================================
Enabled:                         Core, EBC, SMem, EpMem
Disabled:                             SVS, RL, WMA, SSA
-------------------------------------------------------
Number of rules:                                     52
Decisions                                            20
Elaborations                                         61
-------------------------------------------------------
State stack                        S1, S21 ... S29, S33
Current number of states                              5
Next phase                                        apply
-------------------------------------------------------
For a full list of sub-commands and settings:  soar ?

Sub-commands

init

The init-soar command re-initializes Soar. It removes all elements from working memory, wiping out the goal stack, and resets all runtime statistics. The firing counts for all productions are reset to zero. The init-soar command allows a Soar program that has been halted to be reset and start its execution from the beginning.

init-soar does not remove any productions from production memory; to do this, use the excise command. Note however, that all justifications will be removed because they will no longer be supported.

stop

soar stop [--self]

The stop command stops any running Soar agents. It sets a flag in the Soar kernel so that Soar will stop running at a "safe" point and return control to the user. The --self option will stop only the soar agent where the command is issued. All other agents continue running as previously specified.

This command is usually not issued at the command line prompt - a more common use of this command would be, for instance, as a side-effect of pressing a button on a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Note that if a graphical interface doesn't periodically do an "update"/flush the pending I/O, then it may not be possible to interrupt a Soar agent from the command line.

version

This command prints the version of Soar to the screen.

Soar General Options

Invoke a sub-command with no arguments to query the current setting. Partial commands are accepted.

Option Valid Values Default
max-dc-time >= 0 0
max-elaborations > 0 100
max-goal-depth > 0 23
max-gp > 0 20000
max-memory-usage > 0 100000000
max-nil-output-cycles > 0 15
o-support-mode 3 or 4 4
stop-phase apply
timers on or off on
wait-snc >= 1 1

max-dc-time

'max-dc-time' sets a maximum amount of time a decision cycle is permitted. After output phase, the elapsed decision cycle time is checked to see if it is greater than the old maximum, and the maximum dc time stat is updated (see stats). At this time, this threshold is also checked. If met or exceeded, Soar stops at the end of the current output phase with an interrupted state.

max-elaborations

'max-elaborations' sets and prints the maximum number of elaboration cycles allowed in a single decision cycle.

If n is given, it must be a positive integer and is used to reset the number of allowed elaboration cycles. The default value is 100. max-elaborations with no arguments prints the current value.

The elaboration phase will end after max-elaboration cycles have completed, even if there are more productions eligible to fire or retract; and Soar will proceed to the next phase after a warning message is printed to notify the user. This limits the total number of cycles of parallel production firing but does not limit the total number of productions that can fire during elaboration.

This limit is included in Soar to prevent getting stuck in infinite loops (such as a production that repeatedly fires in one elaboration cycle and retracts in the next); if you see the warning message, it may be a signal that you have a bug your code. However some Soar programs are designed to require a large number of elaboration cycles, so rather than a bug, you may need to increase the value of max-elaborations.

'max-elaborations' is checked during both the Propose Phase and the Apply Phase. If Soar runs more than the max-elaborations limit in either of these phases, Soar proceeds to the next phase (either Decision or Output) even if quiescence has not been reached.

max-goal-depth

The 'max-goal-depth' command is used to limit the maximum depth of sub-states. The initial value of this variable is 100; allowable settings are any integer greater than 0. This limit is also included in Soar to prevent getting stuck in an infinite recursive loop, which may come about due to deliberate actions or via an agent bug, such as dropping inadvertently to state-no-change impasses.

max-gp

'max-gp' is used to limit the number of productions produced by a gp command. It is easy to write a gp rule that has a combinatorial explosion and hangs for a long time while those productions are added to memory. The gp-max command bounds this.

max-memory-usage

The 'max-memory-usage' command is used to trigger the memory usage exceeded event. The initial value of this is 100MB (100,000,000); allowable settings are any integer greater than 0.

NOTE: The code supporting this event is not enabled by default because the test can be computationally expensive and is needed only for specific embedded applications. Users may enable the test and event generation by uncommenting code in mem.cpp.

max-nil-output-cycles

'max-nil-output-cycles' sets and prints the maximum number of nil output cycles (output cycles that put nothing on the output link) allowed when running using run-til-output (run --output). If n is not given, this command prints the current number of nil-output-cycles allowed. If n is given, it must be a positive integer and is used to reset the maximum number of allowed nil output cycles.

'max-nil-output-cycles' controls the maximum number of output cycles that generate no output allowed when a run --out command is issued. After this limit has been reached, Soar stops. The default initial setting of n is 15.

stop-phase

'stop-phase' allows the user to control which phase Soar stops in.
When running by decision cycle it can be helpful to have agents stop at a particular point in its execution cycle. The precise definition is that "running for n decisions and stopping before phase ph means to run until the decision cycle counter has increased by n and then stop when the next phase is ph". The phase sequence (as of this writing) is: input, proposal, decision, apply, output. Stopping after one phase is exactly equivalent to stopping before the next phase.

timers

This command is used to control the timers that collect internal profiling information while Soar is running. With no arguments, this command prints out the current timer status. Timers are ENABLED by default. The default compilation flags for soar enable the basic timers and disable the detailed timers. The timers command can only enable or disable timers that have already been enabled with compiler directives. See the stats command for more info on the Soar timing system.

wait-snc

'wait-snc' controls an architectural wait state. On some systems, especially those that model expert knowledge, a state-no-change may represent a wait state rather than an impasse. The waitsnc command allows the user to switch to a mode where a state-no-change that would normally generate an impasse (and subgoaling), instead generates a wait state. At a wait state, the decision cycle will repeat (and the decision cycle count is incremented) but no state-no-change impasse (and therefore no substate) will be generated.

Examples

soar init
soar stop -s
soar timers off
soar stop-phase output                 // stop before output phase
soar max-goal-depth 100
soar max-elaborations

Default Aliases

init                             soar init
is                               soar init
init-soar                        soar init
interrupt                        soar stop
ss                               soar stop
stop                             soar stop
stop-soar                        soar stop
gp-max                           soar max-gp
max-dc-time                      soar max-dc-time 
max-elaborations                 soar max-elaborations
max-goal-depth                   soar max-goal-depth
max-memory-usage                 soar max-memory-usage
max-nil-output-cycles            soar max-nil-output-cycles 
set-stop-phase                   soar stop-phase
timers                           soar timers
version                          soar version
waitsnc                          soar wait-snc

See Also

run stats

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