add_time_of_flight broken in recent releases

[Zachary Marshall]

In 2.6.7, running:

bin/madevent time_of_flight_exec_card

with the card as:

add_time_of_flight run_01 --threshold=100.

Gives a crash:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./bin/madevent", line 165, in <module>
    cmd_line = cmd_interface.MadEventCmdShell(force_run=True)
  File "/tmp/zmarshal/test0/run/PROC_AnoFree_NLO_simp_16_mt_0/bin/internal/madevent_interface.py", line 2108, in __init__
    CmdExtended.__init__(self, me_dir, options, *completekey, **stdin)
  File "/tmp/zmarshal/test0/run/PROC_AnoFree_NLO_simp_16_mt_0/bin/internal/madevent_interface.py", line 203, in __init__
    super(CmdExtended, self).__init__(me_dir, options, *arg, **opt)
  File "/cvmfs/atlas-nightlies.cern.ch/repo/sw/21.6/sw/lcg/releases/LCG_88/MCGenerators/madgraph5amc/2.6.7p3.atlas4/x86_64-slc6-gcc62-opt/madgraph/interface/common_run_interface.py", line 635, in __init__
    if os.path.isabs(me_dir):
  File "/cvmfs/atlas-nightlies.cern.ch/repo/sw/21.6/sw/lcg/releases/LCG_88/Python/2.7.13/x86_64-slc6-gcc62-opt/lib/python2.7/posixpath.py", line 54, in isabs
    return s.startswith('/')
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'startswith'

This seems to be due to the default value of me_dir being passed down from the initial MadEventCmd call:

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~madteam/mg5amcnlo/series2.0/view/head:/Template/LO/bin/madevent#L165

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~madteam/mg5amcnlo/series2.0/view/head:/madgraph/interface/madevent_interface.py#L2104

Is there something we can do to get around this crash? Has the syntax changed?

Thanks,
Zach

[Olivier Mattelaer (olivier-mattelaer)]

Hi Zach,

I have just tested and did not reproduce this. I tested 2.7.0 released this morning, I'm going to try with 2.6.7.

Did you have try to use the parameter within the run_card? This should be an easy way to fix the issue.

Cheers,

Olivier

> On 21 Jan 2020, at 20:13, Zachary Marshall <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> add_time_of_flight run_01 --threshold=100.

[Olivier Mattelaer (olivier-mattelaer)]

Ok I do not reproduce it with 2.6.7 (not too surprised actually since I do not remember any related bug)

I think that I understand your issue which should be much more generic than this one.
If you look at the code, just above the crashing line you have the following:
        if me_dir is None and MADEVENT:
            me_dir = root_path

        if os.path.isabs(me_dir): # this crash complaining that me_dir is None

So clearly your issue (me_dir is None) should be catched by the if statement above.
However, in your case (contrary to the test on my laptop/cluster), The MADEVENT value is likely False.

This variable is simply setup like this:
try:
    import madgraph
except ImportError:
    MADEVENT = True
else:
    MADEVENT=False

So I guess that the issue is related to your PYTHONPATH.
One solution is likely to change your executable in that case and instead of using ./bin/madevent
you should use
the mg5_aMC executable and the following command:
launch PROCESS_PATH -i
add_time_of_flight run_01 --threshold=100.

Cheers,

Olivier

PS: remove the "and MADEVENT" in this case will be wrong in this case since root_path will not be your madevent directory.
PPS: Another question is for you to think if your really need/want to edit your PYTHONPATH obviously, if yes tell me, I will then need to review all the if MADEVENT and check if they are fine in this case.

[Zachary Marshall (zach-marshall)]

Thanks Olivier -- your suggestion for using the original executable did the job!

Best,
Zach