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WSE-3 compatibility
Instruction traces in the SDK GUI are supported on WSE-3 starting with SDK 2.10. On earlier SDKs (1.4 and below) the GUI runs against a WSE-3 simulator but the instruction-trace pane will be empty; the timeline, routes, and landing logs still work. Other panes (timeline, routes, colors, landing logs) are supported on both WSE-2 and WSE-3 across all current SDK versions.
Follow the documentation to launch sdk_debug_shell visualize, pointing to your test artifact directory. Open the URL that the command shows. The diagram below shows a summary of the functionality:
Overview of the SDK GUI interface
The artifacts from your directory will be loaded and shown visually for debugging.

Change Directory

If you wish to load a different directory, enter the new directory and click Submit.
SDK GUI dialog for entering a new work directory and clicking Submit

Dark and Light Modes

To switch between dark and light modes, click the icons at the top right. Switch to dark mode:
SDK GUI in dark mode
Switch to light mode:
SDK GUI in light mode

Routes and Colors

To view the routes on the fabric, select the color IDs. To view all the routes, click Select All.
SDK GUI routes and colors panel with color ID selection
Expanding/collapsing a color ID shows/hides a list of associated color names.
Expanded color ID showing a list of associated color names

Fabric View

Move the fabric around by dragging it. To zoom in and out of the fabric, use the mouse scroll functionality.
SDK GUI fabric view showing the PE grid
Zoomed view of the fabric in the SDK GUI
  • To recenter the fabric, click the Re-center button.
Re-center button for recentering the fabric view
  • To zoom into a particular process element (PE), enter a specific PE Coordinate.
PE Coordinate field for zooming to a specific processing element
For pre-execution artifacts, only routing information is available for viewing. For post-execution artifacts, you can view additional information as documented below. Double-click a PE to open the instruction trace, source code, wavelet trace and symbols panels.
Panels opened by double-clicking a PE: instruction trace, source code, wavelet trace, and symbols
To zoom in and center the selected PE, click the bottom-right of the page.
Selected PE highlighted in the fabric view
Zoomed and centered view of the selected PE
When hovering over the fabric, the coordinates of the currently hovered PE are displayed on the bottom info pane:
PE coordinates displayed in the bottom info pane on hover
If your work directory uses a fabric size greater than 20 x 20, there is a scalable fabric view:
Scalable fabric view for large fabric sizes
The full dimensional view is shown on the right fabric. The left fabric reflects the area highlighted by the dark square on the right fabric. A dark square is drawn by mouse click on the right fabric surface.
Left fabric pane reflecting the area highlighted on the right fabric
Dark square marking the highlighted area on the right fabric
Right fabric pane showing the full dimensional view
Left, right, top, and bottom buttons allow you to navigate across the full dimensional view.
Directional navigation buttons for the full dimensional fabric view
Control moving the selected factory area to the top-left by hitting the Re-corner button.
Re-corner button for moving the selected area to the top-left
The location of the selected routes on the selected fabric area on the left is highlighted in red on the right / full view of the fabric.
Full view of the fabric on the right pane
Selected routes highlighted in red on the full fabric view
To zoom in/out/reset the left fabric, use the zoom control buttons on the top-right.
Zoom control buttons for the left fabric pane
Mouse scroll is not supported to zoom in or out for a scalable fabric view.
The fabric cannot be moved by dragging for a scalable fabric view.

Instruction Traces

You can view the instructions, tasks, statistics, uthreads or micro threads from the instruction trace panel. To view the instructions, from the dropdown list, select Instructions.
Instruction trace panel showing the Instructions view
To view the tasks, from the dropdown list, select Tasks.
Instruction trace panel showing the Tasks view
To view the statistics related to the instructions, from the dropdown list, select Statistics.
Instruction trace panel showing the Statistics view
To view the micro-threads, from the dropdown list, select Uthreads.
Instruction trace panel showing the Uthreads view

Source Code

To view the source code for an instruction, follow the steps below:
  • To view all the instructions, in the instruction trace panel, select Instructions.
  • Click an instruction that has the source code file and line number.
In the Source Code panel, you are navigated to the line number corresponding to the instruction.
Source Code panel showing the line corresponding to a selected instruction

Wavelet Traces

Wavelet traces are displayed in the wavelet trace panel.
  • From the color dropdown, select a color. To select all colors, click Select All.
  • From the wavelet format dropdown, select a format. This formats the header and data fields of the wavelet.
Wavelet trace panel showing traces for a selected color

Timeline: Wavelet Traces

To show the timeline for a wavelet, click a color and a PE. The timeline for wavelet appears in the bottom pane.
Timeline pane showing wavelet traces for a selected color and PE
The timeline has a list of PEs to the left and its corresponding timeline area with wavelet entries to the right. The axis on the top shows the cycle range of the view area. The rectangular bar represents a wavelet. The width of the rectangular bar represents how long the wavelet takes to travel from the current PE to the destination PE. The status of the wavelet is represented by the color of the bar.

Legend Terminology

  • Active: Sender PE can send a wavelet without any backpressure or delay. Shown as green.
  • Delayed: The switch/router (represented by the circle) output is congested due to multiple input sources. Shown as yellow.
  • Backpressure: Destination PE is busy and cannot receive any wavelets from sender PE. The sender PE is back-pressured. Shown as red.
  • Idle: There is no wavelet in the router. Shown as empty spaces in the timeline for a PE.
  • Wavelet Type: : + Control wavelet: Wavelet that changes control, such as routing to a compute element (CE). Shown as blue.
    • Data wavelet: Wavelet that sends data. The active, delayed, and back-pressured wavelets are data wavelets.

Timeline: Instruction Traces

To view the timeline of instruction traces, click the instruction trace icon next to the header title.
Timeline view of instruction traces
The timeline area has rectangular bars depicting a timeline item. The timeline item depicts the number of cycles taken to execute a line of source code. There are tasks running in a PE that executes the source code. The color of the timeline item is linked to the task that is executing. The color legend below the timeline area shows the task numbers corresponding to the timeline color.

Timeline: Combined View

Combined view shows both the wavelet traces and the instruction traces associated with the PE and color. Whenever a new selection is made, two items are added to the timeline area: one corresponding to the timeline of wavelet traces, and the other corresponding to the timeline of instruction traces.
Combined timeline view showing wavelet and instruction traces

Timeline: Navigation Controls

You can delete a PE from the timeline view. Hover over the PE and click the “trash” icon. To clear all the PEs from the timeline view, click the “trash” icon in the upper-right corner. By default, the timeline view shows only the first few hundred cycles. Not all cycles are shown in the initial view. To view the left or right, you can scroll the timeline. There is a red rectangular bar above the timeline area. The red bar represents the current view area. Dragging the red bar left or right moves the timeline view correspondingly. You can also zoom out to show more cycles in the view or zoom in to show fewer cycles in the view.
Zoom controls for navigating the timeline view
There are four buttons related to zoom in the top-right corner. The “-” button zooms out; the “+” button zooms in. To bring the zoom back to the default zoom, use the Reset button. The Zoom to fit button brings all the cycles into view. The green bars indicate Active wavelet traces that don’t have a delay. (See Legend terminology above). Because the rectangular bars representing the timeline are scaled, the green bars may not be visible in this view depending on the time range selected. Another way to zoom the timeline view is to resize the red bar that is at the top of the timeline. By resizing the red bar, you can zoom the timeline view below in and out.

Debug Pane

To show the details in the debug pane to the right, hover over a timeline item. For wavelets, the detail pane shows the cycles that the wavelet took to reach the next PE, a wavelet ID that is shown for debug purposes, the status of the wavelet, the direction (East, West, North, South), and whether it is a control wavelet. The pane also shows index and data fields.
Debug pane showing details for a selected timeline item
To keep a timeline item in the debug pane, click on it. Clicking anywhere on the timeline area unselects the timeline item and removes it from the debug pane.

Settings Dialog

You can enter a new work directory in the textbox at the top of the application. When you click the Submit button, the Settings Dialog appears.
Settings dialog with compile directory, run directory, core file path, and source directory fields
The Settings dialog has four settings: Compile directory, Run directory, Core file path, and Source directory. The application pre-populates these settings for you when you provide a work directory. Of these four settings, only the Compile directory is required. Three of the settings contain dropdown menus: the Compile directory, Run directory, and Core file path. Within the work directory, there may be multiple compile directories, run directories and core file paths. You can switch between multiple values for each in a dropdown. You can also clear the dropdown and enter a custom value for these settings. If there is no run directory provided, then the app cannot show the instruction trace, wavelet trace or the timeline view. If there is no core file path provided, the routes shown in the fabric are compile time routes, and not the routes of the actual simulation. To save the settings, click the Save button. To revert to the previous settings, click the Close button.

Terminal

To view the Terminal page, click the terminal icon on the top right. This page provides a UNIX command console for the root folder where the SDK-GUI web server is running.
Terminal page providing a UNIX command console

Panes

You can toggle panes on and off.
Pane toggle controls for showing and hiding panes
Use the resize handle to resize panes.
Resize handle for adjusting pane size
You can expand panes to a separate page. To do this, click the Expand icon.
Expand icon for opening a pane as a separate page
When you click the expand icon, the pane appears as a full page, as shown below.
Pane expanded to a full page view
You can move from one pane to another. Click the icon on the left navigation bar.
Left navigation bar for switching between panes
  • The first icon (Home) shows the original view with all the panes.
  • The second icon shows the instructions trace pane along with the source code pane.
  • The third icon shows the source code pane.
  • The fourth icon shows the wavelet trace pane.