[WIP] Add ability to configure logging for debugging #360

josh146 · 2020-04-12T13:52:29Z

Context:

When debugging configuration and API access, it's useful to be able to output debugging logging information to a file. This can then be shared when requesting help.

Currently, Strawberry Fields performs logging of internal state and warning, but requires the user have knowledge of the Python logging module in order to modify the logging level/output the log information to a file.

Description of the Change:

Adds a new section to the configuration pertaining to logging:

[logging]
# default logger output on the terminal
level = "info"
# optional logfile output
logfile = "sf.log"

By changing the level option, the user can specify the types of log messages that are displayed in the terminal when using the default SF logger. For instance, by setting level = "debug", more detailed information is output during execution.

By setting the logfile option, the user can specify a logfile that is appended to during SF execution. Currently, the logfile contains all logged messages, of level DEBUG and up.

Click here to see an example logfile created when submitting a remote program.

2020-04-12 21:12:26,640 - DEBUG - Configuration file /home/josh/.config/strawberryfields/config.toml loaded
2020-04-12 21:12:26,641 - DEBUG - Loaded configuration: {'api': {'authentication_token': 'm8Tox***********************************', 'hostname': 'platform.strawberryfields.ai', 'use_ssl': True, 'port': 443}, 'logging': {'level': 'debug'}}
2020-04-12 21:12:26,641 - DEBUG - Compiling program for target X8_01 with compile options {}
2020-04-12 21:12:26,964 - DEBUG - Submitting job
name test
version 1.0
target X8_01 (shots=10)

S2gate(0, 0) | [2, 6]
S2gate(1, 0.0) | [1, 5]
S2gate(0.0, 0.0) | [3, 7]
S2gate(1.0, 0.0) | [0, 4]
MZgate(5.3074357926500895, 1.5739876247864792) | [0, 1]
MZgate(4.279290161703878, 4.202979995136468) | [2, 3]
MZgate(5.824121814032434, 5.033017799971674) | [1, 2]
MZgate(5.198882953351497, 3.715902833866422) | [0, 1]
MZgate(4.712954779003035, 3.107023958221405) | [2, 3]
MZgate(4.83853796968657, 5.988756943006127) | [1, 2]
Rgate(0.6651640322699326) | 0
Rgate(0.06106261020227405) | 1
Rgate(2.94378117796741) | 2
Rgate(1.820738947340938) | 3
MZgate(5.3074357926500895, 1.5739876247864792) | [4, 5]
MZgate(4.279290161703878, 4.202979995136468) | [6, 7]
MZgate(5.824121814032434, 5.033017799971674) | [5, 6]
MZgate(5.198882953351497, 3.715902833866422) | [4, 5]
MZgate(4.712954779003035, 3.107023958221405) | [6, 7]
MZgate(4.83853796968657, 5.988756943006127) | [5, 6]
Rgate(0.6651640322699326) | 4
Rgate(0.06106261020227405) | 5
Rgate(2.94378117796741) | 6
Rgate(1.820738947340938) | 7
MeasureFock() | [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

2020-04-12 21:12:27,608 - INFO - Job d101fc18-289f-442b-a899-3d5a6d40fffc was successfully submitted.

Note: these options only affect the built-in SF logger handlers. If the user creates their own custom logging handler, this overrides the SF built-in handlers.

Adds a DEBUG log message on job submission, logging the submitted blackbird script.
Adds a DEBUG log message on RemoteEngine.run_async(), providing details on program compilation if it occurs.
Adds an INFO log message if the job is complete after a refresh
Adds a sf.configuration.SESSION_CONFIG global variable that stores the configuration of Strawberry Fields as first import. This is used to configure the logger --- the configuration of the logger should not change after this.
load_config() now logs debugging information, including the loaded configuration. Note that loaded API tokens are automatically masked.
Minor refactor of the sf.configuration module:
- The logging section has been added to DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC.
- Some existing functions had hardcoded dependence on the "api" section of the configuration file. This has been removed; now no functions, except for store_account(), depend on the structure of the "api" section. As a result, create_config has been replaced with _generate_config, which automatically generates a default configuration object given a configuration spec.
- find_config_file seemed to duplicate the logic in get_available_config_paths, so now depends on the former.
- get_api_section was currently used only in load_config. Since load_config is now agnostic of the configuration structure, this function is redundant.
- keep_valid_options was removed; in testing, it tended to lead to bad user experience to filter out unknown options. Typos (e.g., prot instead of port) would be pruned from the loaded configuration, making debugging difficult.
Since there is now more than just an api section in the configuration, store_account now loads the existing configuration, modifies it as requested, and then re-writes it to disk. This avoids non-API configuration from being overwritten.

Benefits:

Provides an interface for easy logging configuration for the user.

Possible Drawbacks:

Currently, create_logger requires a loaded configuration to configure the logger. However, load_config creates a logger in order to log details about finding/loading the configuration! This leads to a circular dependency. Currently, this is avoided by passing logging=False to load_config on first load, to turn off any logging (since the logger has not been created yet). However, this is ugly, and bad form. If something goes wrong with the users logging configuration, it won't be logged!
We could consider having a function sf.configure_logger() in order to configure the logging section of the config file within SF, similar to how sf.store_account() configures the API section. E.g.:
```
>>> sf.configure_logger(level="debug", logfile="sf.log")
```
However, since the logger is configured on import, these settings would not take affect until the next SF import.

Related GitHub Issues: n/a

…I option dependence

antalszava · 2020-04-12T16:20:24Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py



 class ConfigurationError(Exception):
    """Exception used for configuration errors"""


-def load_config(filename="config.toml", **kwargs):
+def _deep_update(source, overrides):


Or comparable such that within the function it's more apparent when read

Suggested change

def _deep_update(source, overrides):

def _deep_update(old_dict, new_dict):

antalszava · 2020-04-12T16:28:00Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

-def load_config(filename="config.toml", **kwargs):
+def _deep_update(source, overrides):
+    """Recursively update a nested dictionary.
+


Here the Args part seems to be missing

antalszava · 2020-04-12T16:34:22Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+        if isinstance(value, collections.Mapping) and value:
+            # Override value is a non-empty dictionary.
+            # Update the source key with the override dictionary.
+            returned = _deep_update(source.get(key, {}), value)


Splitting this up might make it easier to grasp the small steps here

Suggested change

returned = _deep_update(source.get(key, {}), value)

source_key = source.get(key, {})

returned = _deep_update(source_key, value)

antalszava · 2020-04-12T16:35:42Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+"""dict: Nested dictionary representing the allowed configuration
+sections, options, default values, and allowed types for Strawberry
+Fields configurations. For each configuration option key, the
+corresponding value is a length-2 tuple, containing:
+
+* A type or tuple of types, representing the allowed type
+  for that configuration option.
+
+* The default value for that configuration option.
+
+.. note::
+
+    By TOML convention, keys with a default value of ``None``
+    will **not** be present in the generated/loaded configuration
+    file. This is because TOML has no concept of ``NoneType`` or ``Null``,
+    instead, the non-presence of a key indicates that the configuration
+    value is not set.
+"""


This is great! 🎊

antalszava · 2020-04-12T16:55:25Z

strawberryfields/api/connection.py

@@ -154,6 +154,8 @@ def create_job(self, target: str, program: Program, run_options: dict = None) ->

        circuit = bb.serialize()

+        self.log.debug("Submitting job\n%s", circuit)


Would be good to keep the level consistent here and on line 164: self.log.info("Job %s was successfully submitted.", job_id). Either both could be DEBUG or both could be INFO.

One thing I was wondering about: for errors, how should we handle logging? Would it make sense to have the same message when instantiating the error and also log that at the same time?

Good question! Errors should definitely be logged, the generated log files should have a running commentary of what happens during program execution.

One way of doing this could be using logger.exception.

This article seems to provide a nice overview of potential logging/exception patterns: https://www.loggly.com/blog/exceptional-logging-of-exceptions-in-python/

I originally had this as info, but I'm not so sure they both belong at the same level. From the Python docs:

Level Description

DEBUG Designates fine-grained informational events that are most useful to debug an application.

INFO Designates informational messages that highlight the progress of the application at coarse-grained level.

Job submission provides information about the progress of the job submission at a very course-grained level. Seems particularly well suited, given that info is the default level, and will be displayed on the output by default.

Logging the submitted circuit is instead more fine-grained debugging data. In most cases, users won't want this displayed as 'info', since the submitted circuit should be evident from their Python code (or determined via prog.compile()). However, this will be useful information when debugging.

Sounds good! Happy if these are kept as they are right now :)

strawberryfields/configuration.py

antalszava · 2020-04-12T17:54:18Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+        match the expected type defined in the configuration spec.
+    """
+    res = {}
+    for k, v in config_spec.items():


Is there any use case for being able to pass config_spec to this function? Most of the times one would be using DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC, but now the function allows any nested dictionary structure. Not sure if the complexity arising from this is worth having.

To me, it seems that the block within the isinstance(v, tuple) case could be renamed and organized into a new function. Since we know that the maximum depth of nesting is 2, using recursion here seems like a general solution to a specific problem which can still be avoided to yield a simpler line of logic.

I probably agree with @antalszava that recursion probably should be avoided if not completely necessary (like in this case since only a very shallow, specific depth of 2 is used), in favour of a more explicit solution.

Ah, good point 🙂 I tried to keep this as general as possible, because TOML allows for nested sections. For example, in the future, we might have something like this:

[api] hostname = "platform.strawberryfields.ai" [default] token = "personal_token" [org1] token = "organization_token"

When loaded via toml.load, it would look like this:

{ "api": { "hostname": "platform.strawberryfields.ai", "default": {"token": "personal_token"}, "org1": {"token": "organization_token"} } }

I suppose it's a question of do we want to disallow nested TOML config files (in which case it makes sense to restrict to simply using DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC here), or if we want to keep this function general.

That's a good point, yes :) I'd be leaning towards keeping it simple for now and updating it whenever a specific nested section is introduced for the configuration (but this is subjective point of view). Overall, this would come with the

Advantage: the configuration related code is tailored onto the current needs, is slightly simpler and easier to be picked up

Disadvantage: once a nested section is being added, the logic here will have to change to this more general solution

antalszava · 2020-04-12T17:54:41Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+    **Example**
+
+    >>> _generate_config(DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC, api={"port": 54})
+    {


How come that the logging section is not included when using DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC? To me, it is something unexpected

Edit: added a suggestion, though this might once again change if the suggestion of having "" as default filename is accepted.

Oh, I think I just forgot to update the docstring!

Oh right that makes sense :)

antalszava · 2020-04-12T20:27:58Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py


 DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC = {
    "api": {
        "authentication_token": (str, ""),
        "hostname": (str, "platform.strawberryfields.ai"),
        "use_ssl": (bool, True),
        "port": (int, 443),
-    }
+    },
+    "logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},


How about this one to go with the same as for authentication_token?

(Edit: although, it also came to my mind that the advantage of leaving it as is would keep the distinction between required and not required options)

Suggested change

"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},

"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": (str, "")},

Just for readability, I think it would be nicer to always write JSON-style nested dictionaries on several lines. 🙂

Suggested change

"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},

"logging": {

"level": (str, "info"),

"logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)

},

strawberryfields/configuration.py

antalszava · 2020-04-12T21:23:58Z

Seems like the circular dependency could be resolved by having module imports: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22210807/12899253

Edit: locally I also had to separate parsing logging optionsfunction into a load_logging_config() and used this in create_logger.

Overall the overhead of pulling the logging options each time create_logger runs does not seem to be something too significant.

This is also the reason why in #359 such a solution was chosen for Connection.__init__ and the previous module attribute was removed. This would help out also in having a configure_logger (the logging details being pulled dynamically means that after a call to configure_logger, create_logger will indeed be using the new options).

thisac

I think this looks great! 💯 Only a few comments, but nothing major.

thisac · 2020-04-13T17:43:45Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py


 DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC = {
    "api": {
        "authentication_token": (str, ""),
        "hostname": (str, "platform.strawberryfields.ai"),
        "use_ssl": (bool, True),
        "port": (int, 443),
-    }
+    },
+    "logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},


Just for readability, I think it would be nicer to always write JSON-style nested dictionaries on several lines. 🙂

Suggested change

"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},

"logging": {

"level": (str, "info"),

"logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)

},

thisac · 2020-04-13T17:52:53Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

 DEFAULT_CONFIG_SPEC = {
    "api": {
        "authentication_token": (str, ""),
        "hostname": (str, "platform.strawberryfields.ai"),
        "use_ssl": (bool, True),
        "port": (int, 443),
-    }
+    },


Just curious; is the type defined for each value something pythonic or is it only part of this code (it looks like the type validation is done in _generate_config below)? Nice either way. 👍

Nothing Pythonic, just a way of having a single 'source of truth' for the allowed configuration at the top of the file 🙂 This means that changes to the configuration/default values/allowed types requires simply modifying this variable --- all subsequent functions are independent of the allowed keys/options/types.

thisac · 2020-04-13T18:50:32Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+        match the expected type defined in the configuration spec.
+    """
+    res = {}
+    for k, v in config_spec.items():


I probably agree with @antalszava that recursion probably should be avoided if not completely necessary (like in this case since only a very shallow, specific depth of 2 is used), in favour of a more explicit solution.

thisac · 2020-04-13T19:04:44Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+            res[k] = _generate_config(v, **kwargs.get(k, {}))
+    return res


(apart from maybe not needing to use recursion) really nice! 🎉

thisac · 2020-04-13T19:38:18Z

strawberryfields/configuration.py

+    if logging:
+        config_details = "Loaded configuration: {}".format(config)
+        auth_token = config.get("api", {}).get("authentication_token", "")
+        config_details = config_details.replace(auth_token[5:], "*" * len(auth_token[5:]))
+        log.debug(config_details)


A bit hacky, though 😆

thisac · 2020-04-13T19:44:03Z

tests/frontend/test_configuration.py

@@ -46,7 +47,8 @@
        "hostname": "platform.strawberryfields.ai",
        "use_ssl": True,
        "port": 443,
-    }
+    },
+    'logging': {'level': 'info'}


Suggested change

'logging': {'level': 'info'}

"logging": {"level": "info"}

tests/frontend/test_configuration.py

thisac · 2020-04-13T20:04:35Z

@josh146 There seem to be an issue with updating from environment variables. test_environment_variables_take_precedence_over_conf_file is failing, and by quickly looking at it it seems like the environment variables never overwrite the config (haven't run it yet though, only briefly looked at the code). 🐛

Co-Authored-By: antalszava <antalszava@gmail.com> Co-Authored-By: Theodor <theodor@xanadu.ai>

josh146 added 4 commits April 11, 2020 14:12

Small cleaning up of the configuration module, to remove hardcoded AP…

70e1cc1

…I option dependence

fix docs building

2b1586b

added logger

11fdb1c

logging

bee52ad

josh146 added frontend WIP labels Apr 12, 2020

josh146 requested review from thisac and antalszava April 12, 2020 13:52

josh146 added 2 commits April 12, 2020 23:24

blacking

86a35c5

add logging function

98c7a73

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josh146 and others added 2 commits April 14, 2020 14:37

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Co-Authored-By: antalszava <antalszava@gmail.com> Co-Authored-By: Theodor <theodor@xanadu.ai>

Merge branch 'master' into debug-logging

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josh146 mentioned this pull request Apr 18, 2020

Add error details for failed remote job #370

Merged

Merge branch 'master' into debug-logging

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[WIP] Add ability to configure logging for debugging #360

[WIP] Add ability to configure logging for debugging #360

josh146 commented Apr 12, 2020

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thisac commented Apr 13, 2020

	def _deep_update(source, overrides):
	def _deep_update(old_dict, new_dict):

	returned = _deep_update(source.get(key, {}), value)
	source_key = source.get(key, {})
	returned = _deep_update(source_key, value)

		@@ -154,6 +154,8 @@ def create_job(self, target: str, program: Program, run_options: dict = None) ->

		circuit = bb.serialize()

		self.log.debug("Submitting job\n%s", circuit)

Level	Description
`DEBUG`	Designates fine-grained informational events that are most useful to debug an application.
`INFO`	Designates informational messages that highlight the progress of the application at coarse-grained level.

	"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": ((str, type(None)), None)},
	"logging": {"level": (str, "info"), "logfile": (str, "")},

[WIP] Add ability to configure logging for debugging #360

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[WIP] Add ability to configure logging for debugging #360

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thisac commented Apr 13, 2020

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