[kepler-dev] Threaded actors in the DE Domain

[ian.brown@hsbcib.com]

Having had a quick peek at the RealTimeComposite, I think it is trying to
do something different (and more difficult) than what I am trying to do.
Basically, I have a source which creates discrete events based upon data
arriving on a TCP/IP port. It is similar to
ptolemy.actor.lib.net.DatagramReader except it is simpler in concept
because it is a connected TCP/IP socket and not a UDP connection.

The concept is the same though, the actor starts a thread that listens in
blocking mode to the socket. When enough data arrives so that a message can
be decoded, a new Event is generated with the following code:

// fireAtCurrentTime has the result that all events are called at model
// time zero with an incrementing microstep. Whilst this will work for most
// scenarios, it has the effect that the timed plotter just displays a
vertical
// line. For that reason, we need to figure out the correct time to fire
the event at.

DEDirector director =(DEDirector)(getDirector());
long start_time = director.getRealStartTimeMillis();
long time_now = java.lang.System.currentTimeMillis();
double model_time = (time_now - start_time) / 1000.0;

director.fireAt(CurrencyPairListener.this, new
ptolemy.actor.util.Time(director, model_time));

This means that DEDirector.fireAt() needs to be thread safe. I assume it
should be because that is how Datagram reader calls it ... and also the
Swing components such as the ArrowKeyListener will call it in the event
thread. In any case, it appears to work reliably until the model contains a
modal model in which case we get the exception originally reported.
Glancing through the code of fireAt() it would appear that there is an
attempt to make it thread safe (access to the calendar queue is
synchronised).

Ian




                                                                           
             ian.brown at hsbcib.                                             
             com                                                           
                                                                        To 
             12/09/2007 17:25          "Edward A. Lee"                     
             Mail Size: 25865          <eal at eecs.berkeley.edu>             
                                                                        cc 
                                       kepler-dev at ecoinformatics.org       
                                                                   Subject 
                                       Re: [kepler-dev] Threaded actors in 
                                       the DE Domain                       
                                                                    Entity 
                                       Investment Banking Europe - IBEU    
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




Edward, the code for the actor was at the bottom of the original mail - I
have chopped out the exception report and left it at the bottom of this
mail so it should be easier to see.

The actor is based on the Datagram Reader actor - but it reads from a
connected TCP/IP socket rather than from a UDP port.
There is only 1 DEDirector in the model and 2 of my source actors. This
means that the DEDirector.fireAt() method will be called from more than one
thread (in the same manner as the Datagram reader). Given that events will
arrive asynchronously, this would appear the only way to do it. I could
synchronise the calls to fireAt() but I would need to know what to
synchronise it against...

I'll take a look at the RealTimeComposte now...

Thanks,

Ian



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