Feature request: online error detection tool #9
Description
This deals with a new debugging feature for online error detection in FLAME models.
What: The ability to test at each state, for each agent, whether any of the memory variables have been set to invalid values (nan, -nan, inf, -inf), or possibly out of range values (implying the user has set such ranges). The use would be like a tracing tool to fix problems that appear only at run-time.
Why: While debugging a model we frequently encounter these "corrupted" values, and it would be of great help if the framework would signal such values as soon as they are set. Often such values propagate to other agents, so it is useful to know which memory variable of which agent was the first to become "corrupted".
How: The feature would require a framework function to run after each function layer, to run the tests, and to output diagnostic info to the user about:
- the memory variable that got corrupted
- the agent affected
- the state at which this occurs
- the function that ran in the layer immediately before the detection
It would work similar to a compiler, in the sense that the tool would try to detect errors, and report them, but at run-time. Similar to compiler errors, the user would resolve problems top to bottom, since errors propagate and resolving early errors could also resolve errors that appear later on during the simulation.