The Explorer

The Explorer is a graphical tool of the Alice programming environment. It can run scripts and display the explored search trees. It can also display the information in the constraint stores associated with the nodes of the search tree.

The statement:

Explorer.ExploreAll smm

tells the Explorer to run the script smm and explore the entire search tree. The Explorer will pop up a window and display the explored nodes of the search tree (see Figure 5). Choice nodes appear as blue circles, failure nodes as red boxes, and solution nodes as green diamonds. Fully explored subtrees not containing solution nodes are collapsed into a single red triangle.

Figure 5: The Explorer with the compact search tree of smm.

Selecting nodes

You can select any node of the displayed search tree (excepting a failure node) by clicking it with the left mouse button. It is also possible to select the parent node of a node that is actually selected with the command (Ctrl + Up), the left child node (the selected node is an open choice node) with the command (Ctrl + Down). Is the left child a failure node, the right child is selected. Further, you can select a left sibling (resp. right sibling) with the command (Ctrl + Left) (resp. (Ctrl + Right)). Again, none of the commands above can select a failure node!

Hiding nodes

Select the red triangle and type the command H (hide/unhide). This will replace the triangle with the actual nodes of the tree (see Figure 6). You now see the full search tree of smm , which consists of three choice nodes, three failure nodes, and one solution node. Typing the command h once more will switch back to the compact representation of the failed subtree. It is not only failed subtrees that you can hide with the command H. If you hide a subtree with command H and there is a solution node in that subtree, a big green triangle replaces that subtree. If there is an open choice node in the subtree, a big green triangle with a small grey triangle appears. The command F just hides failed subtrees.

Figure 6: The Explorer with the full search tree of smm

Double clicking nodes

Next, double-click the green solution node with the left mouse button. A new window is popped - up by the Alice Inspector. It will display the unique solution of the Money Puzzle (see figure 7).

Figure 7: The Inspector showing the solution of smm

You can also double click a blue choice node. This will display the information about the solution that was accumulated in the constraint store before the node was branched. Double clicking the top node of the tree, for instance, results in figure 8.

Figure 8: The Inspector showing the result at the first choice node

This way, the Explorer and the Inspector can display the annotated search tree shown in Figure 4.

Open and closed choice nodes

The statement

Explorer.exploreOne smm

tells the Explorer to run the script smm until the first solution is found. This time the Explorer will show a partial search tree that contains the solution node in the lefttmost position, and also contains an open choice node. An open choice node is a choice node for which not all direct descendents have been explored yet. A closed choice node is a choice node for which all direct descendents have been explored already. While closed choice nodes are displayed as blue circles, open choice nodes are displayed as grey triangles. Not yet explored descendents of an open choice node are not displayed.

To check whether there are further solutions, you can resume the search process by selecting the root node and typing the command N (next). This will resume the search until either the next solution is found or all nodes of the search tree are explored.

Stopping exploration

You can stop the exploring Explorer at any time with the command Ctrl + C.

Resuming exploration

You can resume the exploration of a partial search tree by selecting any choice node and typing the command N or A. The command N (next) will resume the exploration of the selected subtree until a further solution is found or the subtree is fully explored. The command A (all) will resume the exploration of the selected subtree until it is fully explored.

Resetting the Explorer

The command Ctrl + R will reset the Explorer and show only the root node of the search tree (grey triangle). You can request the exploration of the seach tree by typing N or A.

Hand-guided exploration

You can guide the search of the Explorer by hand. Reset the Explorer by typing Ctrl + R. This will select the root node, which is an open choice node. Now type the command S to compute the first descendents of the root. Now, you can select another open choice node and compute its first descendants. You can repeat this exploration until no open choice nodes are left.

Zooming the search tree

The right vertical scroll bar of the Explorer's window zooms the size of the displayed search tree. You can zoom the tree to fit the size of the window by clicking the zoom button above the vertical scroll bar with the left mouse button.