Biometrics Evaluation and Testing Platform

This package contains the source code for the core components of the BEAT platform.

Installation

Really easy, with zc.buildout:

$ python bootstrap-buildout.py
$ ./bin/buildout

These 2 commands should download and install all non-installed dependencies and get you a fully operational test and development environment.

Docker

This package depends on Docker and uses it to run user algorithms in a container with the required software stack. You must install the Docker engine and make sure the user running tests has access to it.

In particular, this package controls memory and CPU utilisation of the containers it launches. You must make sure to enable those functionalities on your installation.

Docker Setup

Make sure you have the docker command available on your system. For certain operating systems, it is necessary to install docker via an external virtual machine (a.k.a. the docker machine). Follow the instructions at the docker website <https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/> before trying to execute algorithms or experiments.

We use specific docker images to run user algorithms. Download the following base images before you try to run tests or experiments on your computer:

$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.system.python:system
$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.db.examples:1.0.0

Optionally, also download the following images to be able to re-run experiments downloaded from the BEAT platform (not required for unit testing):

$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.python:0.0.4
$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.python:0.1.0
$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.cxx:1.0.1
$ docker pull docker.idiap.ch/beat/beat.env.db:1.0.0

Documentation

To build the documentation, just do:

$ ./bin/sphinx-apidoc --separate -d 2 --output=doc/api beat beat/core/test beat/core/scripts
$ ./bin/sphinx-build doc sphinx

Testing

After installation, it is possible to run our suite of unit tests. To do so, use nose:

$ ./bin/nosetests -sv

$ export BEAT_CORE_TEST_PLATFORM="http://example.com/platform/"
$ ./bin/nosetests -sv

If you want to skip slow tests (at least those pulling stuff from our servers) or executing lengthy operations, just do:

$ ./bin/nosetests -sv -a '!slow'

To measure the test coverage, do the following:

$ ./bin/nosetests -sv --with-coverage --cover-package=beat.core

To produce an HTML test coverage report, at the directory ./htmlcov, do the following:

$ ./bin/nosetests -sv --with-coverage --cover-package=beat.core --cover-html --cover-html-dir=htmlcov

Our documentation is also interspersed with test units. You can run them using sphinx:

$ ./bin/sphinx -b doctest doc sphinx

Development

Indentation

You can enforce PEP8 compliance using the application autopep8. For example, to enforce compliance on a single file and edit it in place, do:

$ ./bin/autopep8 --indent-size=2 --in-place beat/core/utils.py

We normally use 2-space indentation. If ever, you can easily change the indentation to 4 spaces like this:

$ ./bin/autopep8 --indent-size=4 --in-place beat/core/utils.py

Profiling

In order to profile the test code, try the following:

$ ./bin/python -mcProfile -oprof.data ./bin/nosetests -sv ...

This will dump the profiling data at prof.data. You can dump its contents in different ways using another command:

$ ./bin/python -mpstats prof.data

This will allow you to dump and print the profiling statistics as you may find fit.