Dynamic Dataflow Modeling in Ptolemy II - Ptolemy Project ...

Before proceeding with how this can be achieved with BooleanSelect actor, let’s spend a
few words on sequential firing rules. Intuitively sequential means that the firing rules can
be tested in a pre-defined order using only blocking reads. Each blocking read can be
expressed as rate information on the input ports. Upon consuming the token, the actor
determines the next input port to read token from, and the corresponding rate information
is updated to reflect that. For a more rigorous treatment of this rather technical definition
of sequentiality, please refer to [9]. Later on in this section, we will give an example of
non-sequential firing rules.
The firing rules of BooleanSelect actor are sequential, therefore we can introduce a two-
phase firings for this actor. During initialization, the control port sets its rate to 1 and
trueInput/falseInput ports both set their rates to 0.
This code block from DDFBooleanSelect actor shows initialization:
public void initialize() throws IllegalActionException {
super.initialize();
_isControlRead = false;
trueInput_tokenConsumptionRate.setToken(new IntToken(0));
falseInput_tokenConsumptionRate.setToken(new IntToken(0));
control_tokenConsumptionRate.setToken(new IntToken(1));
}
In the first firing, the actor consumes a Boolean token from control port. Depending on
the Boolean value of that token (true or false), the corresponding port (trueInput or
falseInput) changes its rate to 1 and the other port keeps its rate at 0. The control port also
needs to change its rate to 0 to declare that it doesn’t consume token in the next firing. In
the second firing, trueInput port or falseInput port with rate 1 consumes one token and
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