A Simple Example

We now consider a simple Datalog program, and explore some of the features of Soufflé. This only introduces some of the most basic functionality available, and advanced users are encouraged to look elsewhere.

Say we have a Datalog file example.dl, whose contents are as shown.

.decl edge(x:number, y:number)
.input edge

.decl path(x:number, y:number)
.output path

path(x, y) :- edge(x, y).
path(x, y) :- path(x, z), edge(z, y).

We see that edge is a .input relation, and so will be read from disk. Also, path is a .output relation, and so will be written to disk.

The last two lines say that 1) “there is a path from x to y if there is an edge from x to y”, and 2) “there is a path from x to y if there is a path from x to some z, and there is an edge from that z to y”.

So if the input edge relation is pairs of vertices in a graph, by these two rules the output path relation will give us all pairs of vertices x and y for which a path exists in that graph from x to y.

For instance, if the contents of the input file edge.facts is

1    2
2    3

The contents of the output file path.csv, after we evaluate this program, will be

1    2
2    3
1    3

We can evaluate this program by running

$ ./src/souffle -F. -D. example.dl

The -F and -D options specify the directories for input and output files respectively. So in this case, edge.facts is in the current working directory ., and path.csv will be produced here also.

If instead edge.facts was in a subdirectory called input, and we wanted to have paths.csv in a subdirectory called output, we could do

$ ./src/souffle -F./input -D./output example.dl

Running Soufflé in this way uses the interpreter mode, which means the Datalog program is evaluated immediately. Soufflé also supports a compiler mode, which transforms the Datalog program into a C++ program, which is then compiled to produce an executable.

So if we run Soufflé with the -o option as shown below.

$ ./src/souffle -F. -D. -oexample example.dl

We get an example.cpp C++ file and an example executable. Note that no path.csv has been produced, as the program has not yet been evaluated.

$ ls

To evaluate our program, we have to run the compiled executable

$ ./example

Note that the compiled executable supports the -F and -D options, so running the following is also possible.

$ ./example -F./input -D./output

The -r option is particularly useful for debugging, as it generates a debug report in html format. Running the following produces an example.html file with this report.

$ ./src/souffle -F. -D. -rexample.html example.dl

Soufflé also allows for profiling with the -p option. Running the following will create a new file example.log with a log of profiling information.

$ ./src/souffle -F. -D. -pexample.log example.dl

To analyse the profiling data in example.log, we need to open it with the included souffle-profile program, done as follows.

$ ./src/souffle-profile example.log

The profiler includes a lot of functionality useful for analysing the performance of Datalog programs. It too comes with a help text, which is given by the following command.

$ ./src/souffle-profile -h

As noted, there are many other useful options available to Soufflé, so be sure to explore them too!