Re: SDL-News: A small question on SDL Concurrency


Subject: Re: SDL-News: A small question on SDL Concurrency
From: Rick Reed TSE (rickreed#tseng.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jan 28 2002 - 20:27:23 GMT


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-----From Rick Reed TSE <rickreed#tseng.co.uk> to sdlnews -----

Shaheen Shasa at shaheen.shasa#wipro.com wrote on 28/01/2002 13:35:

> I have a question regarding the concurrency of process instances inside a
> block. Is it mandatory for two process instances inside a block to execute
> concurrently at the transition level ? ie can they be executed with
> "alternating transition semantics" or even different transitions of PI's need
> to be concurrent. I am a little bit confused regarding SDL Concurrency issues
> , please help !

Is it mandatory for two process instances inside a block to execute
concurrently at the transition level ?
--------------------------------------

No.

Is it permitted? Yes. The semantics should be AS IF they are concurrent.

Can they be executed with "alternating transition semantics"
------------------------------------------------------------

If you mean: can you allow one transition to run to completion before
scheduling another instance. That should be OK.

You should consider things in this way:
-------------------------------------

The semantics of SDL assumes each process instance contained within a block
to be executed on a processing resource of its own. Obviously this is
problematic when there are many process instances or process instances
created dynamically. Therefore in any real system you would expect a run
time system to implement the scheduling of process instances on the limited
number of processors - often a mono-processor. SDL does not define the
scheduling algorithm for the run time system.

To be compliant with the SDL semantics a process instance should be ready to
run when it is in a state and it is possible to enter one of its
transitions. Because SDL does not require any particular rate of execution,
a run time system is compliant with SDL even if no progress is made in a
particular instance that is "ready to run". In other words, a process that
in theory is executing in parallel can be suspended waiting for processing
resources.

Prior to SDL-2000, a block would normally be implemented by a mono-processor
run time system, because communication between process instances in a block
is via "non-delaying" communication paths. This communication only delivers
signals to the input queue of the receiving process instance, and in reality
(even if implemented in micro-program) takes some small but finite amount of
time. On the other hand, there is no requirement for a block to be
implemented on a mono-processor.

SDL does not define how long it takes to execute the consumption of the
signal and entry into the transition, but the transition that is entered
must be determined by the order of arrival of the signals in the input
queue. For example, if both INPUT A and PRIORITY INPUT B cause transitions
TA and TB (respectively) to be started from the current state and the
signals arrive in the order signal A then signal B before the process
instance is actually executed, transition TA will be taken rather then
transition TB. In other words signal B is logically treated as if it arrived
AFTER the transition TA is entered. The run time system and the scheduling
of transitions therefore has to be implemented so that it takes into account
delay in scheduling the process instance.

The run time system and scheduling of transitions also has to take into
account the semantics of spontaneous transitions and timers.

In SDL-2000 paths can be delaying, but this does not change the logic of the
above paragraphs.

Once a process instance is actually executing a transition, the SDL
semantics assume that the transition "runs to completion". This does not
mean that execution of the transition cannot be interrupted and suspended at
the processor resource scheduling level: it is only required that such
suspension it transparent at the SDL level.

In SDL-2000 there can be processes defined within a process, and the
instances of the containing process and contained processes are interleaved
at the transition level. It is not allowed for these processes to be
concurrent.

It is never allowed for different transitions of the same process instance
to be concurrent. It is allowed (but in practice not required - as explained
above - I hope) for different instances of the same process DEFINITION to be
concurrent.

It this is still confusing, please ask again and I will try to give a
different explanation.

--------

This IS a difficult issue to understand and explain, so if any other expert
disagrees with what I have written, I request they supply a further (and
possibly alternative) explanation.
 

--
Rick Reed - rickreed#tseng.co.uk
Tel:+44 1455 55 96 55 Fax:+44 1455 55 96 58 Mob.:+44 7970 50 96 50

--End text from Rick Reed TSE <rickreed#tseng.co.uk> to sdlnews --- For extra SDL Forum Society benefits join at <http://www.sdl-forum.org/Society/members.htm>



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