ASGL

ASGL is an abstract argumentation solver implemented in Embeddable Common Lisp (ECL) and GECODE, a toolkit for developing constraint-based systems and applications. It also features an interface to the Lingeling SAT Solver as an alternative solver backend. The interface of ASGL conforms to ICCMA15.

Copyright (C) 2015  Kilian Sprotte
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions.

Example

Given the abstract argumentation framework

and its encoding in Aspartix format

arg(a).
arg(b).
arg(c).
arg(d).
arg(e).
att(a,b).
att(b,a).
att(a,c).
att(c,d).
att(d,e).
att(e,c).

saved as a file af.apx, we can enumerate all extensions under the complete semantics with ASGL, using the following command:

$ asgl -p EE-CO -fo apx -f "af.apx"
[
  []
, [b]
, [a,d]
]

This shows us that the set of complete extensions here is {∅,{b},{a,d}}, solving the problem EE-CO for the example argumentation framework.

ASGL reports the problems it can solve via the command:

$ asgl --problems
[DC-CO, DC-GR, DC-PR, DC-ST, DS-CO, DS-GR, DS-PR, DS-ST, EE-CO, EE-GR, EE-PR, EE-ST, SE-CO, SE-GR, SE-PR, SE-ST]

A problem here is defined as consisting of a computational task and a semantics.

For the computational tasks, we have:

1. SE Given an abstract argumentation framework, determine some extension
2. EE Given an abstract argumentation framework, determine all extensions
3. DC Given an abstract argumentation framework and some argument, decide whether the given argument is credulously inferred
4. DS Given an abstract argumentation framework and some argument, decide whether the given argument is skeptically inferred

For the semantics, we have:

1. CO Complete Semantics
2. PR Preferred Semantics
3. GR Grounded Semantics
4. ST Stable Semantics

Thus, to compute the set of stable extensions, which in this example is the singleton set {{a,d}}, we solve the problem EE-ST running the command:

$ asgl -p EE-ST -fo apx -f "af.apx"
[
  [a,d]
]

For further examples and documentation of the interface, please refer to ICCMA15.

Important files

Dockerfile : executable instructions to build a docker container for compiling and running ASGL based on a clean ubuntu image

asgl.lisp : the main implementation of ASGL

gecode.lisp : the gecode interface

sat.lisp : the lingeling interface

BoolSpace.cpp, PrBABSpace.cpp : GECODE space subclasses needed by ASGL

data/ : AF instances for acceptance tests

features/ : cucumber acceptance tests

lingeling/ : Lingeling SAT Solver

tests/ : unit tests

Prerequisites

Building ASGL needs a number of prerequisites to be installed beforehand, which are listed below.

A more precise, executable specification is given in the accompanying Dockerfile. The instructions given there will perform all the necessary steps based on a clean ubuntu image. This allows for ASGL to be easily built and run in a docker container.

GECODE

A standard installation of GECODE is needed. ASGL is intended to be used with Gecode 4.3.3.

Float variables are not needed, so they can be excluded in the GECODE configuration. Installation of GIST ist optional, but configure needs to be informed (see below).

ECL

ASGL requires ECL 13.5.1. As the GECODE interface is realized using embedded C++ code, ECL needs to be built with a C++ compiler (by indicating --with-cxx), instead of a C Compiler. This is not the default, so a standard installation of ECL cannot be used.

The following configuration has proven to be working:

./configure \
  --enable-threads --with-cxx --with-dffi=included \
  --enable-boehm=included --with-system-gmp \
  --enable-libatomic=included --enable-unicode

Ragel

A standard installation of Ragel is needed. ASGL has been successfully built with Ragel State Machine Compiler version 6.9 Oct 2014.

Cucumber

In order to run the included acceptance tests, cucumber, as well as aruba need to be installed. During development of ASGL, Ruby 1.9.3 was used.

Building

autoconf

Run autoconf to create the configure script from configure.ac.

configure

Run ./configure. Depending on your GECODE installation, you might want to pass --without-gist.

generate make .mk files

Run ./scripts/generate-make-mk.sh to generate .mk files that are included by the main Makefile.

make

Run make. After the build finishes successfully, ASGL can be invoked with ./bin/asgl.

make test

Run ASGL_HOME=`pwd` make test or alternatively ASGL_HOME=`pwd` CUKE_ARGS="--tags '~@slow'" make test (skipping some long running tests).

The unit tests can also be run individually, e.g. by ASGL_HOME=`pwd` ./bin/asgl --check tests/tests-quick.lisp .

Docker

There is a docker image automatically built at Docker Hub.