Introduction

These pages document the RooStats / RooFit - based software tool used for statistical analysis within the CMS experiment - Combine. Note that while this tool was originally developed in the Higgs Physics Analysis Group (PAG), its usage is now widespread within CMS.

Combine provides a command-line interface to many different statistical techniques, available inside RooFit/RooStats, that are used widely inside CMS.

The package exists on GitHub under https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit

For more information about Git, GitHub and its usage in CMS, see http://cms-sw.github.io/cmssw/faq.html

The code can be checked out from GitHub and compiled on top of a CMSSW release that includes a recent RooFit/RooStats, or via standalone compilation without CMSSW dependencies. See the instructions for installation of Combine below.

Installation instructions

Installation instructions and recommended versions can be found below. Since v9.0.0, the versioning follows the semantic versioning 2.0.0 standard. Earlier versions are not guaranteed to follow the standard.

Within CMSSW (recommended for CMS users)

The instructions below are for installation within a CMSSW environment. For end users that do not need to commit or do any development, the following recipes should be sufficient. To choose a release version, you can find the latest releases on github under https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit/releases

Combine v10 - recommended version

The nominal installation method is inside CMSSW. The current release targets the CMSSW 14_1_X series because of the recent switch to el9 at lxplus machines.

cmsrel CMSSW_14_1_0_pre4
cd CMSSW_14_1_0_pre4/src
cmsenv
git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit

Update to a recommended tag - currently the recommended tag is v10.0.2: see release notes

cd $CMSSW_BASE/src/HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
git fetch origin
git checkout v10.0.2
scramv1 b clean; scramv1 b # always make a clean build

Combine v9

The nominal installation method is inside CMSSW. The current release targets the CMSSW 11_3_X series because this release has both python2 and python3 ROOT bindings, allowing a more gradual migration of user code to python3. Combine is fully python3-compatible and, with some adaptations, can also work in 12_X releases.

CMSSW 11_3_X runs on slc7, which can be setup using apptainer (see detailed instructions):

cmssw-el7
cmsrel CMSSW_11_3_4
cd CMSSW_11_3_4/src
cmsenv
git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit

Update to a recommended tag - currently the recommended tag is v9.2.1: see release notes

cd $CMSSW_BASE/src/HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
git fetch origin
git checkout v9.2.1
scramv1 b clean; scramv1 b # always make a clean build

Combine v8: `CMSSW_10_2_X` release series

Setting up the environment (once):

cmssw-el7
cmsrel CMSSW_10_2_13
cd CMSSW_10_2_13/src
cmsenv
git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit

Update to a recommended tag - currently the recommended tag is v8.2.0: see release notes

cd $CMSSW_BASE/src/HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
git fetch origin
git checkout v8.2.0
scramv1 b clean; scramv1 b # always make a clean build

SLC6/CC7 release `CMSSW_8_1_X`

Setting up OS using apptainer (see detailed instructions):

# For CC7:
cmssw-el7
# For SLC6:
cmssw-el6

cmsrel CMSSW_8_1_0
cd CMSSW_8_1_0/src
cmsenv
git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit

Update to a recommended tag - currently the recommended tag for CMSSW_8_1_X is v7.0.13:

cd $CMSSW_BASE/src/HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
git fetch origin
git checkout v7.0.13
scramv1 b clean; scramv1 b # always make a clean build

Oustide of CMSSW (recommended for non-CMS users)

Pre-compiled versions of the tool are available as container images from the CMS cloud. These containers can be downloaded and run using Docker. If you have docker running you can pull and run the image using,

docker run --name combine -it gitlab-registry.cern.ch/cms-cloud/combine-standalone:<tag>

where you must replace <tag> with a particular version of the tool - eg - v9.2.1. See the top of this page for the latest recommended versions.

You will now have the compiled Combine binary available as well as the complete package of tool. The container can be re-started using docker start -i combine.

Standalone compilation

The standalone version can be easily compiled using cvmfs as it relies on dependencies that are already installed at /cvmfs/cms.cern.ch/. Access to /cvmfs/cms.cern.ch/ can be obtained from lxplus machines or via CernVM. See CernVM for further details on the latter. In case you do not want to use the cvmfs area, you will need to adapt the locations of the dependencies listed in both the Makefile and env_standalone.sh files.

git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit/ 
# git checkout <some release>
. env_standalone.sh
make -j 4

You will need to source env_standalone.sh each time you want to use the package, or add it to your login environment.

Compilation of slc7 compatible versions

For Combine versions before v10 release you will need to do the compilation in an slc7 environment using apptainer. You can then source the standalone script outside of the apptainer. On lxplus this can be done as follows:

git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit/ 
# git checkout <some release>
cmssw-el7
. env_standalone.sh
make -j 4
exit
source . env_standalone.sh

Standalone compilation with LCG

For compilation outside of CMSSW, for example to use ROOT versions not yet available in CMSSW, one can compile against LCG releases. The current default is to compile with LCG_102, which contains ROOT 6.26:

git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
source env_lcg.sh 
make LCG=1 -j 8

To change the LCG version, edit env_lcg.sh.

The resulting binaries can be moved for use in a batch job if the following files are included in the job tarball:

tar -zcf Combine_LCG_env.tar.gz build interface src/classes.h --exclude=obj

Standalone compilation with `conda`

This recipe will work both for linux and MacOS

git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit.git HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit
cd HiggsAnalysis/CombinedLimit

conda install --name base mamba # faster conda
mamba env create -f conda_env.yml

conda activate combine
source set_conda_env_vars.sh
# Need to reactivate
conda deactivate
conda activate combine

make CONDA=1 -j 8

Using Combine from then on should only require sourcing the conda environment

conda activate combine

Note: on OS X, Combine can only accept workspaces, so run text2workspace.py first. This is due to an issue with child processes and LD_LIBRARY_PATH (see note in Makefile)

Standalone compilation with CernVM

Combine, either standalone or not, can be compiled via CVMFS using access to /cvmfs/cms.cern.ch/ obtained using a virtual machine - CernVM. To use CernVM You should have access to CERN IT resources. If you are a CERN user you can use your account, otherwise you can request a lightweight account. If you have a CERN user account, we strongly suggest you simply run one of the other standalone installations, which are simpler and faster than using a VM.

You should have a working VM on your local machine, compatible with CernVM, such as VirtualBox. All the required software can be downloaded here. At least 2GB of disk space should be reserved on the virtual machine for Combine to work properly and the machine must be contextualized to add the CMS group to CVMFS. A minimal working setup is described below.

Download the CernVM-launcher for your operating system, following the instructions available [here] for your operating system (https://cernvm.readthedocs.io/en/stable/cpt-launch.html#installation
Prepare a CMS context. You can use the CMS open data one already available on gitHub: wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cernvm/public-contexts/master/cms-opendata-2011.context)
Launch the virtual machine cernvm-launch create --name combine --cpus 2 cms-opendata-2011.context
In the VM, proceed with an installation of combine

Installation through CernVM is maintained on a best-effort basis and these instructions may not be up to date.

What has changed between tags?

You can generate a diff of any two tags (eg for v9.2.1 and v9.2.0) by using the following url:

https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit/compare/v9.2.0...v9.2.1

Replace the tag names in the url to any tags you would like to compare.

For developers

We use the Fork and Pull model for development: each user creates a copy of the repository on GitHub, commits their requests there, and then sends pull requests for the administrators to merge.

Prerequisites

Register on GitHub, as needed anyway for CMSSW development: http://cms-sw.github.io/cmssw/faq.html
Register your SSH key on GitHub: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys
Fork the repository to create your copy of it: https://github.com/cms-analysis/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit/fork (more documentation at https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo )

You will now be able to browse your fork of the repository from https://github.com/your-github-user-name/HiggsAnalysis-CombinedLimit

We strongly encourage you to contribute any developments you make back to the main repository. See contributing.md for details about contributing.

CombineHarvester/CombineTools

CombineHarvester/CombineTools is a package for the creation of datacards/workspaces used with Combine v10 for a number of analyses in CMS. See the CombineHarvester documentation pages for more details on using this tool and additional features available in the full package.

This package also comes with useful features for Combine such as the automated datacard validation (see instructions). The repository can be checked out and compiled using,

git clone https://github.com/cms-analysis/CombineHarvester.git CombineHarvester
scram b

See the CombineHarvester documentation for full instructions and reccomended versions.

Info

Starting with Combine v10, specific ombineTool functionalities for job submition and parallelization (combineTool.py) as well as many plotting functions have been integrated into the Combine package. For these tasks you no longer have to follow the instructions above.

Citation

If you use Combine, please cite the following CMS publication here.

Show BibTex Entry

@article{
    CMS:2024onh,
    author = "Hayrapetyan, Aram and others",
    collaboration = "CMS",
    title = "The {CMS} statistical analysis and combination tool: {\textsc{Combine}}",
    eprint = "2404.06614",
    archivePrefix = "arXiv",
    primaryClass = "physics.data-an",
    reportNumber = "CMS-CAT-23-001, CERN-EP-2024-078",
    year = "2024",
    journal = "Comput. Softw. Big Sci.",
    doi = "10.1007/s41781-024-00121-4",
    volume = "8",
    pages = "19"
}