RunCompositeActor
ptolemy.actor.lib.hoc.RunCompositeActor

This is a composite actor that can executes the contained model completely, as if it were a top-level model, on each firing. This can be used to define an actor whose firing behavior is given by a complete execution of a submodel. <p> An instance of this actor can have ports added to it. If it has input ports, then on each firing, before executing the referenced model, this actor will read an input token from the input port, if there is one, and use it to set the value of a top-level parameter in the referenced model that has the same name as the port, if there is one. The simplest way to ensure that there is a matching parameter is to use a PortParameter for inputs. However, this actor will work also for ordinary ports. In this case, if this actor has a parameter with the same name as the port, and it is an instance of Variable (or its derived class Parameter), then the token read at the input is moved into it using its setToken() method. Otherwise, if it is an instance of Settable, then a string representation of the token is copied using the setExpression() method. Input ports should not be multiports, and if they are, then all but the first channel will be ignored. <p> If this actor has output ports and the contained model is executed, then upon completion of that execution, if this actor has parameters whose names match those of the output ports, then the final value of those parameters is sent to the output ports. If such a parameter is an instance of Variable (or its derived class Parameter), then its contained token is sent to the output token. Otherwise, if it is an instance of Settable, then a string token is produced on the output with its value equal to that returned by getExpression() of the Settable. Output ports should not be multiports. If they are, then all but the first channel will be ignored. A typical use of this actor will use the SetVariable actor inside to define the value of the output port. <p> In preinitialize(), type constraints are set up so that input and output ports with (name) matching parameters are constrained to have compatible types. Note that if the ports or parameters are changed during execution, then it will be necessary to set up matching type constraints by hand. Since this isn't possible to do from Vergil, the ports and parameters of this actor should not be changed using Vergil during execution. <p> The subclass of this may need to call a method, for example prefire(), of the superclass of this when execute the inside model. Since Java doesn't supported super.super.prefire(), this class uses a boolean variable <i>_isSubclassOfRunCompositeActor</i> to provide a mechanism to call the method of the superclass of this. To to so, Subclass of this can set the <i>_isSubclassOfRunCompositeActor</i> to be true. <p> This actor also overrides the requestChange() method and the executeChangerRequests() method to execute the given change. It does not delegate the change request to the container, but executes the request immediately or records it, depending on whether setDeferringChangeRequests() has been called with a true argument.

Author(s): Edward A. Lee, Yang Zhao
Version:$Id: RunCompositeActor.doc.html,v 1.1 2006/02/22 18:41:22 mangal Exp $
Pt.Proposed Rating:Yellow (eal)
Pt.Accepted Rating:Red (eal)