cwltool 1.0.20170704143016

Common workflow language reference implementation

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Common workflow language tool description reference implementation
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CWL Conformance test: |Build Status|

Travis: |Unix Build Status|

.. |Unix Build Status| image:: https://img.shields.io/travis/common-workflow-language/cwltool/master.svg?label=unix%20build
:target: https://travis-ci.org/common-workflow-language/cwltool

This is the reference implementation of the Common Workflow Language. It is
intended to be feature complete and provide comprehensive validation of CWL
files as well as provide other tools related to working with CWL.

This is written and tested for Python 2.7.

The reference implementation consists of two packages. The "cwltool" package
is the primary Python module containing the reference implementation in the
"cwltool" module and console executable by the same name.

The "cwlref-runner" package is optional and provides an additional entry point
under the alias "cwl-runner", which is the implementation-agnostic name for the
default CWL interpreter installed on a host.

Install
-------

Installing the official package from PyPi (will install "cwltool" package as
well)::

pip install cwlref-runner

If installing alongside another CWL implementation then::

pip install cwltool

To install from source::

git clone https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwltool.git
cd cwltool && python setup.py install
cd cwlref-runner && python setup.py install # co-installing? skip this

Remember, if co-installing multiple CWL implementations then you need to
maintain which implementation ``cwl-runner`` points to via a symbolic file
system link or `another facility <https://wiki.debian.org/DebianAlternatives>`_.

Running tests locally
---------------------

- Running basic tests ``(/tests)``:

.. code:: bash

python setup.py test

- Running the entire suite of CWL conformance tests:

The GitHub repository for the CWL specifications contains a script that tests a CWL
implementation against a wide array of valid CWL files using the `cwltest <https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwltest>`_
program

Instructions for running these tests can be found in the Common Workflow Language Specification repository at https://github.com/common-workflow-language/common-workflow-language/blob/master/CONFORMANCE_TESTS.md

Run on the command line
-----------------------

Simple command::

cwl-runner [tool-or-workflow-description] [input-job-settings]

Or if you have multiple CWL implementations installed and you want to override
the default cwl-runner use::

cwltool [tool-or-workflow-description] [input-job-settings]

Use with boot2docker
--------------------
boot2docker is running docker inside a virtual machine and it only mounts ``Users``
on it. The default behavior of CWL is to create temporary directories under e.g.
``/Var`` which is not accessible to Docker containers.

To run CWL successfully with boot2docker you need to set the ``--tmpdir-prefix``
and ``--tmp-outdir-prefix`` to somewhere under ``/Users``::

$ cwl-runner --tmp-outdir-prefix=/Users/username/project --tmpdir-prefix=/Users/username/project wc-tool.cwl wc-job.json

.. |Build Status| image:: https://ci.commonwl.org/buildStatus/icon?job=cwltool-conformance
:target: https://ci.commonwl.org/job/cwltool-conformance/

Tool or workflow loading from remote or local locations
-------------------------------------------------------

``cwltool`` can run tool and workflow descriptions on both local and remote
systems via its support for HTTP[S] URLs.

Input job files and Workflow steps (via the `run` directive) can reference CWL
documents using absolute or relative local filesytem paths. If a relative path
is referenced and that document isn't found in the current directory then the
following locations will be searched:
http://www.commonwl.org/v1.0/CommandLineTool.html#Discovering_CWL_documents_on_a_local_filesystem


Use with GA4GH Tool Registry API
--------------------------------

Cwltool can launch tools directly from `GA4GH Tool Registry API`_ endpoints.

By default, cwltool searches https://dockstore.org/ . Use --add-tool-registry to add other registries to the search path.

For example ::

cwltool --non-strict quay.io/collaboratory/dockstore-tool-bamstats:master test.json

and (defaults to latest when a version is not specified) ::

cwltool --non-strict quay.io/collaboratory/dockstore-tool-bamstats test.json

For this example, grab the test.json (and input file) from https://github.com/CancerCollaboratory/dockstore-tool-bamstats

.. _`GA4GH Tool Registry API`: https://github.com/ga4gh/tool-registry-schemas

Import as a module
------------------

Add::

import cwltool

to your script.

The easiest way to use cwltool to run a tool or workflow from Python is to use a Factory::

import cwltool.factory
fac = cwltool.factory.Factory()

echo = f.make("echo.cwl")
result = echo(inp="foo")

# result["out"] == "foo"


Cwltool control flow
--------------------

Technical outline of how cwltool works internally, for maintainers.

#. Use CWL `load_tool()` to load document.

#. Fetches the document from file or URL
#. Applies preprocessing (syntax/identifier expansion and normalization)
#. Validates the document based on cwlVersion
#. If necessary, updates the document to latest spec
#. Constructs a Process object using `make_tool()` callback. This yields a
CommandLineTool, Workflow, or ExpressionTool. For workflows, this
recursively constructs each workflow step.
#. To construct custom types for CommandLineTool, Workflow, or
ExpressionTool, provide a custom `make_tool()`

#. Iterate on the `job()` method of the Process object to get back runnable jobs.

#. `job()` is a generator method (uses the Python iterator protocol)
#. Each time the `job()` method is invoked in an iteration, it returns one
of: a runnable item (an object with a `run()` method), `None` (indicating
there is currently no work ready to run) or end of iteration (indicating
the process is complete.)
#. Invoke the runnable item by calling `run()`. This runs the tool and gets output.
#. Output of a process is reported by an output callback.
#. `job()` may be iterated over multiple times. It will yield all the work
that is currently ready to run and then yield None.

#. "Workflow" objects create a corresponding "WorkflowJob" and "WorkflowJobStep" objects to hold the workflow state for the duration of the job invocation.

#. The WorkflowJob iterates over each WorkflowJobStep and determines if the
inputs the step are ready.
#. When a step is ready, it constructs an input object for that step and
iterates on the `job()` method of the workflow job step.
#. Each runnable item is yielded back up to top level run loop
#. When a step job completes and receives an output callback, the
job outputs are assigned to the output of the workflow step.
#. When all steps are complete, the intermediate files are moved to a final
workflow output, intermediate directories are deleted, and the output
callback for the workflow is called.

#. "CommandLineTool" job() objects yield a single runnable object.

#. The CommandLineTool `job()` method calls `makeJobRunner()` to create a
`CommandLineJob` object
#. The job method configures the CommandLineJob object by setting public
attributes
#. The job method iterates over file and directories inputs to the
CommandLineTool and creates a "path map".
#. Files are mapped from their "resolved" location to a "target" path where
they will appear at tool invocation (for example, a location inside a
Docker container.) The target paths are used on the command line.
#. Files are staged to targets paths using either Docker volume binds (when
using containers) or symlinks (if not). This staging step enables files
to be logically rearranged or renamed independent of their source layout.
#. The run() method of CommandLineJob executes the command line tool or
Docker container, waits for it to complete, collects output, and makes
the output callback.


Extension points
----------------

The following functions can be provided to main(), to load_tool(), or to the
executor to override or augment the listed behaviors.

executor(tool, job_order_object, **kwargs)
(Process, Dict[Text, Any], **Any) -> Tuple[Dict[Text, Any], Text]

A toplevel workflow execution loop, should synchronously execute a process
object and return an output object.

makeTool(toolpath_object, **kwargs)
(Dict[Text, Any], **Any) -> Process

Construct a Process object from a document.

selectResources(request)
(Dict[Text, int]) -> Dict[Text, int]

Take a resource request and turn it into a concrete resource assignment.

versionfunc()
() -> Text

Return version string.

make_fs_access(basedir)
(Text) -> StdFsAccess

Return a file system access object.

fetcher_constructor(cache, session)
(Dict[unicode, unicode], requests.sessions.Session) -> Fetcher

Construct a Fetcher object with the supplied cache and HTTP session.

resolver(document_loader, document)
(Loader, Union[Text, dict[Text, Any]]) -> Text

Resolve a relative document identifier to an absolute one which can be fetched.

logger_handler
logging.Handler

Handler object for logging.