Selection Rules

Selection rules are used to create sets and to perform queries.

A selection rule consists of a list of predicates, separated by either spaces or logical operators. A non-quoted, non-escaped space between predicates is equivalent to an AND operator. Parentheses may be used to group logical operations or manipulate precedence. Each predicate typically consists of three parts:
  1. The name of the field, which is required. The name of the field is case-insensitive and may contain extra underscores. For example, ISJOB, IsJob and is_job are all legal names for the field ISJOB.
  2. An operator on the field. Refer to the list of Operators.
  3. A value. This part is interpreted as an integer for boolean and integer fields, or as a string for string fields. The value may contain spaces or other special characters if it is enclosed in double quotes (see Examples of Selection Rules, below). Spaces in a value may also be entered if they are preceded by a backslash ("\") character. Operator and value can be omitted, in which case they default to !=0 for numeric fields and !="" for string fields.

A special case is also supported where the name of a field can be passed by itself. This will query for objects that contain the field, and where the field's value is non-zero (for numeric fields) or non-empty (for string fields).

Supported logical operations are AND, OR and NOT. In the absence of parentheses, AND operations will always take precedence over OR operations at the same level. For example, the expression:
idint<5000 | idint>10000 & isjob
is evaluated as:
idint<5000 | (idint>10000 & isjob)
which may not be what was intended. To make sure the isjob predicate applies to the entire rule, use parentheses to group the predicates explicitly: 
(idint<5000 | idint>10000) & isjob
When selecting multiple values from a single field, comma-separated lists of values are supported. For example to select all INVALID and FAILED jobs, the selection rule can be written as:
isjob & status==FAILED,INVALID
This rule is equivalent to:
isjob & (status==FAILED | status==INVALID)
Note: Commas used in regular expressions, that is, with the ~, ^ or : operators, will be interpreted as separators in a list of regular expressions. For example, the rule isjob status~A,B will match any job with "A" or "B" in its status field and does NOT attempt to match the string "A,B". If you wish to use a comma in a regular expression, enclose the expression in quotes. In this example you would use isjob status~"A,B".

Selection rules that accept integer values will also accept timespecs; for example "isjob autokill>10m" would select all jobs with an autokill set to greater than 10 minutes.

Examples of Selection Rules

Selection Rule Explanation
isjob==1 Select all jobs
isjob Select all jobs (equivalent to "isjob!=0")
!isjob Select everything except jobs (equivalent to "isjob!=0")
not isjob Select everything except jobs (equivalent to "isjob!=0")
IS_FILE and db!=FILE Select all files which are not in the database FILE
status==RUNNING Select all nodes whose status is RUNNING
status==RUNNING,VALID Select all nodes whose status is RUNNING or VALID
status!=RUNNING,VALID Select all nodes whose status is neither RUNNING nor VALID
status!=RUNNING and status!=VALID Select all nodes whose status is neither RUNNING nor VALID
isjob status==INVALID Select all invalid jobs
isjob duration>300 Select all jobs that have lasted more than 5 minutes (i.e. 300 seconds).
isjob command~~aa Select all jobs with a command line containing the string aa; the ~~ operator is used for case insensitive match.
isjob age<600 Select all jobs completed less than 10 minutes ago.
isjob & age<600 Select all jobs completed less than 10 minutes ago.
isjob AND age<600 Select all jobs completed less than 10 minutes ago.
isfile name~ccc Select all files with name containing ccc.
isjob inputs<2 status==INVALID Select all jobs that have fewer than 2 inputs and are invalid.
isjob AND (inputs<2 OR status==INVALID) Select all jobs that have fewer than 2 inputs or are invalid.
isjob (inputs<2 | status==INVALID) Select all jobs that have fewer than 2 inputs or are invalid.
isjob inputs<2 | status==INVALID Select all jobs that have fewer than 2 inputs, and all nodes (including non-jobs) that are invalid. See notes on AND/OR precedence, above.
isfile status==VALID age>=600 name~xxx Select all valid files older than 10 minutes whose name contains the string xxx.
isfile status==VALID age>=10m name~xxx Select all valid files older than 10 minutes whose name contains the string xxx.
isjob tool==gcc resources~diskio duration>10 Select all jobs that use the tool gcc and require the resource diskio and take more than 10 seconds.
isjob status~A,D Select all jobs that have either "A" or "D" in their Status fields; see notes on commas in regular expressions, above.
isjob & status~"A,D" Select all jobs that have the string "A,D" in their Status fields.
isjob & status~[A-Z]+A[A-Z]+D Select all jobs that match the regular expression "[A-Z]+A[A-Z]+D" in their Status fields (e.g. FAILED, INVALID).
isjob status::inv* Select all jobs whose status fields start with "inv" (case-insensitive).
isjob and status:inv* Select all jobs whose status fields start with "inv" (case-sensitive).
isjob status!::inv* Select all jobs whose status fields do not start with "inv" (case-insensitive).
isjob AND command!^"sleep 60" Select all jobs whose commands do not contain the string "sleep 60" (case-sensitive). Note that spaces are allowed in quoted values.
isjob AND command!^^sleep\ 60 Select all jobs whose commands do not contain the string "sleep 60" (case-insensitive). Note that spaces are allowed if preceded by a backslash ("\").

Selection Rules and Incompatible Fields

A predicate based on an incompatible field is always true. Thus, the effect of the rule isjob name~xxx is to select all jobs in the trace, because the predicate isjob is true for jobs and false for files, while the predicate name~xxx is true for all jobs because the field "NAME" is incompatible for jobs.
Note: The flag for skip is actually named autoflow.
For example: 
# Look for skipped jobs
isjob ISAUTOFLOW==1