ProB 2 Jupyter Kernel

This is a Jupyter kernel for the ProB animator and model checker, based on the ProB 2 Java API and the Jupyter JVM BaseKernel library.

Note: The project is still in development, but the syntax and commands accepted by the kernel are relatively stable. Small breaking changes in future versions are possible, but unlikely.

Downloads

• Download the latest version of the ProB2 Jupyter kernel here.
• Download links for previous versions can be found in the changelog.
• A snapshot build of the latest development version is also available. Warning: this is an unstable version that can contain bugs or breaking changes.

See the requirements and installation instructions for information on how to install and use the downloaded jar file.

Requirements

• Java 8 or newer
  • Tested up to Java 17.
• A Python 3 interpreter with Jupyter installed
  • Tested with CPython 3.8 and Jupyter core/Notebook 6.x.
  • Older Python and Jupyter versions should also work (see below), but if possible please use the current versions of Python and Jupyter.
  • This kernel requires version 5.0 of the kernel message protocol, which is supported by all versions of Jupyter (since the split from IPython, i. e. 4.x and later), as well as IPython Notebook 3.x.
  • The Python version does not matter, as long as it is supported by the Jupyter version in use. Jupyter Notebook 6.x (the current version) supports Python 3.5 and later. Older Jupyter versions also support Python 2.7 (before Jupyter 6.0), and 3.4 and 3.3 (before Juypter 5.3.0).

Installation

For end users

1. Ensure that all requirements are installed.
2. Download the latest version of the kernel.
3. If Jupyter is installed in a virtual environment, activate it.
4. Run java -jar <jarfile> install to install the kernel. (<jarfile> is the name of the jar file that you just downloaded.)
   • If you get a permission error when installing the kernel spec, add the option --user after install. This will install the kernel spec into your user home instead of the Python install directory (which may not be writable).
   • This assumes that Jupyter can be called using the command jupyter. To use a different command in place of jupyter, pass it as an argument after install, e. g. java -jar <jarfile> install /path/to/jupyter.
   • To use a different ProB home directory than the default, pass -Dprob.home=/path/to/prob/home before the -jar option. (The path must be absolute.)
5. (Optional) The jar file can be deleted after installation.

For developers

1. Ensure that all requirements are installed.
2. Clone this repository (git clone https://gitlab.cs.uni-duesseldorf.de/general/stups/prob2-jupyter-kernel.git) or download an archive from the repository page.
3. If Jupyter is installed in a virtual environment, activate it.
4. In the root directory of the repository, run ./gradlew installKernelSpec.
   • If Jupyter is installed in a virtual environment and you get an error that the jupyter command could not be found/executed, try running the Gradle command with the --no-daemon option. This ensures that Gradle sees all environment changes performed by the activation of the virtual environment.
   • If you get a permission error when installing the kernel spec, pass -PkernelspecUserInstall=true to the ./gradlew command. This will install the kernel spec into your user home instead of the Python install directory (which may not be writable).
   • This assumes that Jupyter can be called using the command jupyter. To use a different command in place of jupyter, you can pass -PjupyterCommand=/path/to/jupyter to the ./gradlew command.
   • To use a different ProB home directory than the default, pass -PprobHome=/path/to/prob/home to the ./gradlew command. (The path must be absolute.)

Updating

To update from an older version of the kernel, follow the installation instructions above. (It's not necessary to uninstall the old version first.) See the changelog for a list of changes in each release.

Uninstalling

To remove the kernel from Jupyter, run jupyter kernelspec remove prob2.

If the kernel was installed using java -jar <jarfile> install, the kernel jar has been copied into prob2-<version>/jupyter in your ProB home directory (~/.prob by default). To uninstall the kernel completely, delete this jupyter folder.

Usage

After installation, start the Jupyter Notebook web interface using jupyter notebook. The ProB 2 kernel can be selected when creating a new notebook.

You can also use the kernel with other frontends. You may need to manually specify the ProB 2 kernel's ID (prob2). For example, to run the kernel using Jupyter's console and Qt console frontends:

$ jupyter console --kernel=prob2
$ jupyter qtconsole --kernel=prob2

For information on how to use the kernel, run the built-in :help command, or see the included example notebooks.

Citing

An article about the ProB Jupyter kernel has been published at ABZ'2020 (short link).

@inproceedings{GelessusLeuschel:abz2020,
	author = {David Gelessus and Michael Leuschel},
	title = {{ProB} and {Jupyter} for Logic, Set Theory, Theoretical Computer Science and Formal Methods},
	booktitle = {Proceedings ABZ 2020},
	editor = "Raschke, Alexander and M{\'e}ry, Dominique and Houdek, Frank",
	year = {2020},
	series = {LNCS 12071},
	pages = "248--254",
	isbn = "978-3-030-48077-6"
}