Validators in scripting languages

The validator script_validator allows you to write validation logic in your language of choice (Python, PHP, Perl, Java, bash). script_validator takes two additional command-line arguments:

--init_script "scriptname arg1 ... argn"
--compare_script "scriptname arg1 ... argn"

--init_script specifies a script to check the validity of a result. The script is passed parameters (see below) that identify the result. The script's exit code is:

• zero if the result is valid
• 3 (VAL_RESULT_TRANSIENT_ERROR in sched/validate_util2.h) if a transient error occurred (for example, a file open failed because of an NFS mount failure). In this case the validation will tried again in a few hours.
• Any other nonzero value indicates an error, and the result is marked as invalid.

--compare_script specifies a script to compare two results. The script's exit code is

• zero if the results match
• 3 (VAL_RESULT_TRANSIENT_ERROR in sched/validate_util2.h) if a transient error occurred.
• Any other nonzero value if the results don't match.

The scripts must be put in your project's bin/ directory.

For applications that don't use replication, the compare script need not be given. For applications that don't need output file syntax checking, the init script need not be given.

Arguments passed to the scripts

arg1 ... argn represent cmdline args to be passed to the scripts. The options for the init script are:

files: list of paths of output files of the result

result_id: the result ID.

runtime: the job runtime in seconds

The options for the compare script include the above, and also:

files2: list of paths of output files of the 2nd result.

result_id2: ID of the 2nd result.

runtime2: runtime of the 2nd result, in seconds.

For both scripts, arg1 ... argn can be omitted, in which case only the output file paths are passed to the script.

Example

As an example, the following PHP script, used as a compare script, requires that results match exactly:

#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
$f1 = $argv[1];
$f2 = $argv[2];
if (md5_file($f1) != md5_file($f2)) {
    fwrite(STDERR, "$f1 and $f2 don't match\n");
    exit(1);
}
?>

The corresponding entry in config.xml would look like

<daemon>
    <cmd>script_validator --app uppercase --compare_script compare.php</cmd>
    ...
</daemon>