# 3.4. FindMUS¶

FindMUS [1] lists unsatisfiable subsets of constraints in your MiniZinc model. These subsets, called Minimal Unsatisfiable Subsets cane help you to find faults in your unsatisfiable constraint model. FindMUS uses the hierarchical structure provided by the model to guide its search.

## 3.4.1. Basic Usage¶

To use FindMUS on the command line simply execute it on a model and set of data files by typing:

minizinc --solver findMUS model.mzn data-1.dzn

Note: FindMUS requires a fully instantiated constraint model.

### 3.4.1.1. Commandline arguments¶

The FindMUS tool supports the following arguments:

Driver options

The driver creates the map solver and sub-solver and requests MUSes from FindMUS’s enumeration algorithm HierMUS.

-n <count> Stop after the n th MUS is found (Default: 1)

-a Find all MUSes

--timeout <s> Stop search after s seconds (Default: 1800)

Enumeration options

The enumeration algorithm (HierMUS) explores the constraint hierarchy provided in the user’s model, proposes potential MUSes to the sub-solver. The default algorithm is internally referred to as stackMUS. This algorithm can be replaced with either MARCO or ReMUS which have their own strengths. Our implementation of these algorithms in turn utilizes a simple linear deletion based ‘shrink’ method. This can be replaced with the binary-splitting QuickXplain which can be much quicker.

--marco Use the MARCO [3] algorithm as sub-enumerator

--remus Use the ReMUS [4] algorithm as sub-enumerator (not compatible with Hierarchical Search)

--qx Use QuickXplain [5] for shrink step of MARCO or ReMUS

--depth mzn,fzn,<n>

How deep in the tree should search explore. (Default: 1)

mzn expands the search as far as the point when the compiler leaves the MiniZinc model.

fzn expands search as far as the FlatZinc constraints.

<n> expand search to the n level of the hierarchy.

Subsolver options

FindMUS can be used in conjunction with any FlatZinc solver. These options mimic the minizinc arguments --solver and --fzn-flags. The behavior of these arguments is likely to change in later versions of the tool.

--solver <s> Use solver s for SAT checking. (Default: “gecode”)

--solver-flags <f> Pass flags f to sub-solver. (Default: empty)

--solver-timelimit <ms> Set hard time limit for solver in milliseconds. (Default: 1100)

--soft-defines Consider functional constraints as part of MUSes

Filtering options

FindMUS can include or exclude constraints from its search based on the expression and constraint name annotations as well as properties of their paths (for example, line numbers). These filters are currently based on substrings but in future may support text spans and regular expressions.

--named-only
Only consider constraints annotated with string annotations

--filter-named <names> --filter-named-exclude <names> Include/exclude constraints with names that match sep separated names

--filter-path <paths> --filter-path-exclude <paths> Include/exclude based on paths

--filter-sep <sep> Separator used for named and path filters

Structure options

The structure coming from a user’s model can significantly impact the performance of a MUS enumeration algorithm. Here we allow the structure to be generalized in various ways and extra structure can be injected in the form of binarization of the tree.

--structure flat,gen,normal,mix

Alters initial structure: (Default: normal)

flat Remove all structure

gen Remove instance specific structure

normal No change

mix Apply gen before normal

--binarize normal,leaves,all

normal No change

leaves Introduce structure at the leaves

all Introduce structure throughout tree

Verbosity options

--verbose-{map,enum,subsolve} <n> Set verbosity level for different components

--verbose Set verbosity level of all components to 1

Misc options

--dump-dot <dot> Write tree in GraphViz format to file <dot>

### 3.4.1.2. Example¶

The following demonstrates the basic usage of FindMUS on a simple example. Below, we see a model for the latin squares puzzle [2] with some incompatible symmetry breaking constraints added.

Listing 3.4.1 Faulty model for Latin Squares (latin_squares.mzn).
% latin_squares.mzn
include "globals.mzn";

int: n = 3;
set of int: N = 1..n;
array[N, N] of var N: X;

forall (i in N)
forall (j in N)

constraint :: "LLRows"
forall (i in 1..n-1)
(lex_less(row(X, i), row(X, i+1)) :: "LL(rows \(i) \(i+1))");
constraint :: "LGCols"
forall (j in 1..n-1)
(lex_greater(col(X, j), col(X, j+1)) :: "LG(cols \(j) \(j+1)");

solve satisfy;

output [ show2d(X) ];


Here we have used the new constraint and expression annotations added in MiniZinc 2.2.0. Note that these annotations are not necessary for FindMUS to work but may help with interpreting the output. The first two constraints: ADRows and ADCols define the alldifferent constraints on the respective rows and columns of the latin square. The next two constraints LLRows and LGCols post lex constraints that order the rows to be increasing and the columns to be increasing. Certain combinations of these constraints are going to be in conflict.

Executing the command minizinc --solver findMUS -a latin_squares.mzn returns the following output. Note that the -a argument requests all MUSes that can be found with the default settings (more detail below).

FznSubProblem:  hard cons: 36   soft cons: 26   leaves: 26      branches: 21    Built tree in 0.03100 seconds.
SubsetMap:      nleaves:        4       nbranches:      1
MUS: 0 1 2 21 22 3 32 33 4 43 44 5 54 55 6 7 8

Traces:
latin_squares.mzn|9|5|10|51|ca|forall
latin_squares.mzn|16|5|17|68|ca|forall
latin_squares.mzn|19|5|20|70|ca|forall
====================

MUS: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 21 22 32 33 43 44 54 55 9

Traces:
latin_squares.mzn|16|5|17|68|ca|forall
latin_squares.mzn|12|5|13|51|ca|forall
latin_squares.mzn|19|5|20|70|ca|forall
====================

Total Time: 0.24700     nmuses: 2       map: 10 sat: 6  total: 16

=====UNKNOWN=====


The first two lines, starting with FznSubProblem: and SubsetMap provide some useful information for debugging the findMUS tool. Next we have the list of MUSes separated by a series of equals = signs. Each MUS is described with three sections:

1. MUS: lists the indicies of FlatZinc constraints involved in this MUS.
2. Brief: lists the FlatZinc constraint name, the expression name, and the constraint name for each involved FlatZinc constraint.
3. Traces: lists the MiniZinc paths corresponding to the constraints of the MUS. Each path typically contains a list of path elements separated by semi-colons ;. Each element includes a file path, a start line, start column, end line and end column denoting a span of text from the listed file. And finally, a description of the element. In the examples above all paths point to calls to a forall on different lines of the model. (ca|forall)

The final line of output lists the Total Time, the number of MUSes found, and some statistics about the number of times the internal map solver map was called, and the number of times the subproblem solver was called sat.

Interpreting the two MUSes listed here we see that the lex constraints from lines 16 and 19 were included in both and only one of the alldifferent constraints from line 9 and 12 are required for the model to be unsatisfiable. The lex constraints being involved in every MUS make them a strong candidate for being the source of unsatisfiability in the user’s model.

## 3.4.2. Using FindMUS in the MiniZinc IDE¶

To use FindMUS in the MiniZinc IDE, upon discovering that a model is unsatisfiable. Select FindMUS from the solver configuration dropdown menu and click the solve button (play symbol). By default FindMUS is configured to return a single MUS at a depth of ‘1’. This should be relatively fast and help locate the relevant constraint items. The following shows the result of running FindMUS with the default options.

Selecting the returned MUS highlights three top level constraints as shown: ADRows, LLRows and LGCols. To get a more specific MUS we can instruct FindMUS to go deeper than the top level constraints by clicking the “Show configuration editor” button in the top right hand corner of the MiniZinc IDE window, and adding --depth mzn to the “Additional solver command line arguments” textbox in the “Solver options” section. The following shows a more specific MUS in this model.

In this case we can see that the output pane list more specific information about the constraints involved in the MUS. After each listed constraint name we see what any loop variables were assigned to when the constraint was added to the FlatZinc. For example (j=2).

## 3.4.3. How it works¶

A simple explanation of the algorithm is presented here. For a more detailed exploration of an earlier version of the approach see the Debugging Unsatisfiable Constraint Models paper [1].

The approach takes the full FlatZinc program and paritions the constraints into groups based on the hierarchy provided in the user’s model. To begin with (at depth ‘1’) we search for MUSes in the set of top level constraint items. If we are not at the target depth we recursively select a found MUS, split its constituent constraints into lower level constraints based on the hierarchy and begin another search for MUSes underneath this high-level MUS. If any MUSes are found we know that the high-level MUS is not minimal and so it should not be reported. This process is repeated on any found MUSes until we reach the required depth at which point we will start to repot MUSes. If in the recursive search we return to a high-level MUS without finding any sub-MUSes we can report this MUS as a real MUS. This recursive process is referred to as HierMUS. At each stage when we request the enumeration of a set of MUSes underneath a high-level MUS we can use one of several MUS enumeration algorithms. By default we use the internally developed StackMUS. We can also utilize MARCO and ReMUS for this role.

## 3.4.4. Performance tips¶

If you are trying to find MUSes in a very large instance it is advised to make use of the filtering tools available. Use the default settings to find a very high-level MUS and then use the --depth option to find lower-level, more specific MUSes in conjunction with the --filter-name and --filter-path options to focus on finding specific sub-MUSes of a found high-level MUS.

## 3.4.5. Limitations / Future work¶

There are several features that we aim to include quite soon:

Regular expression based filtering
This will allow more complex filtering to be used.
Text span based filtering
This will allow a user to simply click-and-drag a selection around the parts of a constraint model they wish to analyse.
Single MUS focus mode
This mode would perform the process outlined in the ‘Performance tips’ section automatically making it easier for users to find detailed MUSes.
 [1] (1, 2) Leo, K. et al., “Debugging Unsatisiable Constraint Models”, 2017.
 [3] Liffiton, M. H. et al., “Fast, Flexible MUS Enumeration”, 2016.
 [4] Bendík, J. et al., “Recursive Online Enumeration of All Minimal Unsatisfiable Subsets”, 2018.
 [5] Junker, U. et al., “QUICKXPLAIN: preferred explanations and relaxations for over-constrained problems”, 2004.