# Checkpointing in MetaRVM

## Introduction

This vignette demonstrates how to configure and use the checkpointing functionality in MetaRVM with examples. Checkpointing allows to store the model state at specific time points during the simulation, allowing one to resume runs from saved states.

## How Checkpointing Works

MetaRVM’s checkpointing system is configured through the YAML configuration file.

1. Saving checkpoints: During simulation, the complete state (compartments, parameters, time step) is saved to disk at specified dates
2. Restoring from checkpoints: A new simulation can be initialized from a previously saved checkpoint, continuing from that point forward
3. Flexible scheduling: Exact dates when checkpoints should be saved are to be supplied, or by default it will checkpoint at the end-of-simulation date.

### Configuration Parameters

The checkpointing system uses three main configuration options in the `simulation_config` section:

- `checkpoint_dir`: Directory where checkpoint files will be saved (created if it doesn’t exist)
- `checkpoint_dates`: (Optional) List of specific dates when checkpoints should be saved
- `restore_from`: (Optional) Path to a checkpoint file to resume from

## Example

For the purpose of this example, we will set the checkpointed directory to be a temporary directory, and will create a temporary yaml configuration file based on a template.

### Set Up

    library(MetaRVM)
    options(odin.verbose = FALSE)

    # Get the example configuration file
    example_config <- system.file("extdata", "example_config_checkpoint.yaml",
                                  package = "MetaRVM")

    # Create a temporary directory for checkpoints
    checkpoint_dir <- tempdir()
    cat("Checkpoint directory:", checkpoint_dir, "\n")
    #> Checkpoint directory: /tmp/RtmpGtasTI

### Create a Configuration with Checkpointing

Now copy the example configuration and modify it to add checkpointing:

    # Read the example configuration
    yml <- yaml::read_yaml(example_config)
    yml_tmp <- data.table::copy(yml)

    # Assign checkpoint directory
    yml_tmp$simulation_config$checkpoint_dir <- checkpoint_dir

    # Create a temporary config
    temp_config <- tempfile(tmpdir = dirname(example_config), fileext = ".yaml")
    yaml::write_yaml(yml_tmp, temp_config)
    temp_config <- normalizePath(temp_config)

### Run Simulation with Checkpoints

    # Run the simulation
    results <- metaRVM(temp_config)

    # Check what checkpoint files were created
    checkpoint_files <- list.files(checkpoint_dir,
                                   pattern = "^chk_.*\\.Rda$",
                                   full.names = FALSE)

    if (length(checkpoint_files) > 0) {
      for (file in checkpoint_files) {
        cat("  -", file, "\n")
      }
    } else {
      cat("  (No checkpoint files found)\n")
    }
    #>   - chk_2024-12-29_1.Rda

### Examine the Results

    cat("Number of instances:", results$run_info$n_instances, "\n")
    #> Number of instances: 1
    cat("Date range:", format(results$run_info$date_range[1]), "to",
        format(results$run_info$date_range[2]), "\n")
    #> Date range: 2024-10-01 to 2024-12-29

    # Display first few rows
    print(head(results$results, 10))
    #>           date    age   race   zone disease_state        value instance
    #>         <Date> <char> <char> <char>        <char>        <num>    <int>
    #>  1: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11             D 2.252583e-04        1
    #>  2: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11             E 1.305178e+01        1
    #>  3: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11             H 2.304447e-01        1
    #>  4: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11         I_all 2.731688e+01        1
    #>  5: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11       I_asymp 3.227854e-01        1
    #>  6: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11         I_eff 2.647304e+01        1
    #>  7: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11     I_presymp 7.531660e-01        1
    #>  8: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11        I_symp 2.624093e+01        1
    #>  9: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11             P 3.074200e+04        1
    #> 10: 2024-10-01   0-17      A     11             R 1.148308e+01        1

### Resume from a Checkpoint

We’ll create a new configuration that restores from the checkpoint. We need to provide the checkpoint file name, and a start date which should be the next day of the end date in the previous run.

    # Get the first checkpoint file
    checkpoint_files_full <- list.files(checkpoint_dir,
                                        pattern = "^chk_.*\\.Rda$",
                                        full.names = TRUE)

    if (length(checkpoint_files_full) > 0) {
      checkpoint_to_restore <- checkpoint_files_full[1]

      cat(checkpoint_to_restore, "\n\n")

      new_start_date <- "12/30/2024"
      yml_tmp <- data.table::copy(yml)
      yml_tmp$simulation_config$start_date <- new_start_date
      yml_tmp$simulation_config$restore_from <- checkpoint_to_restore
      yml_tmp$population_data$initialization <- NULL # ensure that we don't want to reinitialize the population from the initialization file

      temp_config_resume <- tempfile(tmpdir = dirname(example_config),fileext = ".yaml")
      yaml::write_yaml(yml_tmp, temp_config_resume)
      temp_config_resume <- normalizePath(temp_config_resume)

      # Run the resumed simulation
      results_resumed <- metaRVM(temp_config_resume)

      cat("Number of instances:", results_resumed$run_info$n_instances, "\n")
      cat("Date range:", format(results_resumed$run_info$date_range[1]), "to",
          format(results_resumed$run_info$date_range[2]), "\n")

    } else {
      cat("No checkpoint files found to resume from.\n")
    }
    #> /tmp/RtmpGtasTI/chk_2024-12-29_1.Rda
    #>
    #> Number of instances: 1
    #> Date range: 2024-12-30 to 2025-03-29

### Plot

    run1_hosp_sum <- results$results[disease_state == "H", .(total = sum(value)), by = "date"]
    run2_hosp_sum <- results_resumed$results[disease_state == "H", .(total = sum(value)), by = "date"]

    library(ggplot2)
    ggplot(rbind(run1_hosp_sum, run2_hosp_sum), aes(date, total)) +
      geom_line(, color = "red") +
      geom_vline(xintercept = as.Date("2024-12-29"), linetype = "dashed") +
      labs(y = "Hospitalizations", x = "Date") + theme_bw()

plot of chunk plot

## Understanding Checkpoint Files

When checkpointing is enabled, MetaRVM creates checkpoint files with the following naming convention:

    chk_YYYY-MM-DD_N.Rda

Where: - `YYYY-MM-DD` is the checkpoint date - `N` is the simulation instance number (1 to nsim)

For more information on configuring MetaRVM simulations, see the YAML Configuration vignette.