
DDEActor |
ptolemy.domains.dde.kernel.DDEActor |
An optional base class for DDE actors. DDEActors are intended to
execute as autonomous processes that maintain a distributed notion
of time. In a DDE model, each actor is controlled by a unique
DDEThread. Each DDEThread maintains its actor's local notion of
time. Local time information is dependent on the time stamps
associated with tokens that are consumed by an actor. More
precisely, an actor's local notion of time is equivalent to the
maximum time stamp of all tokens that the actor has consumed.
Constraints on the consumption of tokens are described in the
documentation for DDEThread. Note that consumed tokens may include
NullTokens. A NullToken is a subclass of Token that is communicated
solely for the purpose of advancing the local notion of time of the
actor that consumes the NullToken.
<P>
The DDE model of computation supports typed, polymorphic actors and
does not require this base class for implementation; this class is
purely optional. This class provides convenient syntactic shortcuts
for developing actors that operate according to DDE semantics.
Author(s): John S. Davis II
Version:$Id: DDEActor.doc.html,v 1.1 2006/02/22 18:40:26 mangal Exp $
Pt.Proposed Rating:Yellow (davisj)
Pt.Accepted Rating:Yellow (yuhong)