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 Posted: Feb 21, 2012 - 04:39 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Hi again Kartman,
Thank you for your contribution sharing this very
useful post here
So Does it mean we can't get interrupts in
a Co-operative Task Switcher? since you've mention that each task must run and finish at a definite amount of time?
Thank you. |
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Posted: Feb 21, 2012 - 09:24 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62238
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
So Does it mean we can't get interrupts in
a Co-operative Task Switcher? since you've mention that each task must run and finish at a definite amount of time?
Just think of a co-op tasker as one big while(1) main() loop and in that sense it's no different to any other kind of program and there are no limits about also running ISRs alongside.
The usual rules about trying to keep ISRs as short as possible apply of course. If an ISR were to take 100ms for example then that would stop all the co-operating foreground tasks for all that time. So, as always, make it just a few time sensitive instructions and put any "long work" in another foreground task that usually does nothing but is triggered into action by some flag set in the ISR. The usual rules for foreground task timing apply to it too - so if it will take more than the usual task time limit then break its work up into a multi-stage state machine too. |
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 04:03 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Thank you again Cliff. it makes sense.
I am getting to know how things should really be done
If we can in some of the pseudo code that Kartman gave for ex.
1. for timers=0 to 7
we want to do
2. if timer[timers] >0, decrement timer[timers].
if timer[timers] = 0 then set_task timers.
3. next timers
i was concerned on this piece of code.
Code:
while (task < NUM_TASKS )
{
if (task_timers[task])
{
task_timers[task]--; /* dec the timer */
if (task_timers[task] == 0 )
{
set_task(task); /* if ==0 activate the task bit */
}
}
task++;
}
shouldn't on the 1st if statement have been
Code:
if (task_timers[task]>0)
{
task_timers[task]--;
} // etc..
rather than if (task_timers[task])
Since Kartman said earlier that we want to decrement
the associated timer if it's found to be greater than 0?
Cheers. |
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 05:29 AM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18533
Location: Lund, Sweden
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| Since task_timers is unsigned it can never be < 0, so the test is good as Kartman gave it. |
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 11:28 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Thank you answer Johan
You are right unsigned int can never be < 0,
but it can be greater than zero, which is the case
i was talking about that if is ever found to be > 0.
Code:
if (task_timers[task]>0)
{
task_timers[task]--;
}
then we would decrement it? |
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 11:50 AM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18533
Location: Lund, Sweden
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But testing with just
Code:
if (task_timers[task])
for unsigned does just the same! Remember that as long as something is != 0 it is true.
So, technically it will do just as fine as testing for > 0.
Whether it would be clearer for the reader of the code to use > 0 is probably a matter of opinion. |
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 12:46 PM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Thank you Johan,
very well explained  |
Last edited by Kase57 on Jun 28, 2012 - 04:25 PM; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Feb 22, 2012 - 01:31 PM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Shouldn't also code
Code:
while (task <= NUM_TASKS )
{
if ((task_bits & pgm_read_byte(&bit_mask[task])))
{
break; /* if activate task found..*/
}
task++; /* else try the next one */
}
really be
Code:
while (task < NUM_TASKS ) // a slight change here for "<="
{
if ((task_bits & pgm_read_byte(&bit_mask[task])))
{
break; /* if activate task found..*/
}
task++; /* else try the next one */
}
since
Code:
unsigned int task_timers[NUM_TASKS]={0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};
has 8 elements starting from 0 which makes the last element be the 7th?
thus from while (task <= NUM_TASKS ) this allows the 8th element aswell no? which might probably lead to access of the memory outside the array boundary when compiler gets to this if statement, as the last element is the 7th
Code:
if ((task_bits & pgm_read_byte(&bit_mask[task])))
Thanks all. |
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Posted: Feb 25, 2012 - 02:07 PM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Hi again all,
Kartman said that for example task 1 might need task 2 to take (run) 1sec!
So i understood that creating task_timers[NUM_TASKS]={0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0}; gives us extra opportunities to specify the time we want that task to run plus to keep in track if its flag is ON.
I was concerned about initializing the task to a certain amount of time! like some task run in 250 ms? won't this affect/delay other tasks as we had 10 ms for each task to run?
If i understood right we might want some tasks to take longer than others as long as the finish and other can also follow?
(which is the matter of the facts Kartman said that the worst case scenario would be having the task which will need to be done on every single 10 ms basis)
But then if the task could take longer than others as long as it finishes and allow other also to run would be fine?
(just like Cliff suggested like in the while (1) loop, the most important thing is that every single task will be done although some may take longer than others) right?
Thank all. |
Last edited by Kase57 on Jun 28, 2012 - 03:24 PM; edited 2 times in total
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Posted: Mar 03, 2012 - 04:02 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Just out of curiosity question, Does anyone knows What adding a RTOS in this Cooperative Multitasking would benefit?
I am just learning on Multitasking RTOS.
Cheers. |
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Posted: Mar 03, 2012 - 09:45 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62238
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
Does anyone knows What adding a RTOS in this Cooperative Multitasking would benefit?
Your question makes little sense - are you saying you would run a secondary co-operative tasking system within a single thread of a pre-emptive, time-slicing tasking system? To what gain? If you have a pre-emptive scheduler then why not make all tasks separate - that's kind of the point of pre-emption isn't it? |
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Posted: Mar 04, 2012 - 05:27 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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Thank you for your comment Cliff, apologize me if you think i am asking a silly question, but is any "time slicing operation also a RTOS" ?
I think yes! since I can myself define a RTOS as an operating system which has a consistent timing and high degree of task priority.
so it seems like my original question was whether a RTOS is a software or hardware or if we can we it in have both parties,
(again my apologies if you think i am asking a silly question)
Thanks. |
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Posted: Mar 04, 2012 - 03:21 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62238
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
but is any "time slicing operation also a RTOS" ?
It's an "OS" but whether it is "T" is another matter. For example Linux is a time slicing OS but even when you apply the real-time patches to the kernel it's still very difficult to guarantee true real time operation. The latency on interrupt handling can be quite a problem!
Quote:
so it seems like my original question was whether a RTOS is a software or hardware or if we can we it in have both parties,
There is no question it's simply a piece of software however it would be difficult to envisage a time slicing OS that does not use some form of timer. In Linux and Windos this means a 10ms or 1ms timer that switches between anything up to about 10,000 threads of execution at any one time. |
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Posted: Mar 08, 2012 - 12:48 PM |
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Joined: Apr 06, 2006
Posts: 90
Location: Sweden
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Great tutorial Kartman, as always!
This is supposed to be a question, but I am not really sure how to ask it, but here goes:
In the code example, task6 and task7 will end up running in roud-robin style after the first execution of each task, because of the higher priority of task6, right? But sometimes you would want two tasks running syncronously, not one time slot apart.
So what would the solution be then? I guess there is only one, do a task with two sub-tasks in one time slot?
I hope someone understand what I am talking about. |
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Posted: Mar 20, 2012 - 06:26 AM |
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Joined: Dec 30, 2004
Posts: 8742
Location: Melbourne,Australia
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| Say you wanted task 6 & 7 to run every second but half a second apart. Task6 would load the task timer for task7 with half a second. Similarly, task7 would load the timer for task6 with half a second. These two tasks would happily ping pong. |
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Posted: Apr 04, 2012 - 09:07 AM |
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Joined: Apr 06, 2006
Posts: 90
Location: Sweden
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Hehe I actually meant the other way, two tasks beeing executed in the SAME time slot.
What it all comes down to is probably that I don't see how the prioritization actually is thought to work.
I see the tasks running in round-robin style after all tasks have been executed once and everything has settled. With this the highest priority task will simply be the first one in the "round-robin schedule".
Ok, last thought/question, why would one want to use prioritization? I obviously fail, big time, to see the reason  |
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Posted: Apr 04, 2012 - 09:21 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62238
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Quote:
Ok, last thought/question, why would one want to use prioritization?
Windows (these days) does it for example. Things like the mouse and keyboard service have a higher priority than when, for example, Excel is recalculating a spreadsheet. In days gone by you spent a lot of time looking at an "hour glass" mouse cursor (often that would not move) while Excel calculated.
Even when you aren't using an OS you do the same in the design of your main/interrupt mixed programs where you do things like updating LCDs in the "spare time" while things like reading the spindle rotation or operating the control valves is done as a matter of urgency. |
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Posted: Jun 07, 2012 - 07:48 PM |
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Joined: May 03, 2012
Posts: 6
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At first I wanna thank the author for writing this great tutorial!
I have been searching a long time for a easy to use and understand "RTOS" or something that could handle tasks. After I never got DuinOS running and FreeRTOS and others were just too complicated to get it running with the arduino IDE I thought I would never find something, untill I found this tutorial.
So I just wanted to say that it works perfect with the arduino IDE, just copy-> paste and rename the "main" into "loop" and you can have fun with the arduino libraries and create tasks.
THANKS!!! you saved me a lot of time!!! |
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Posted: Jun 13, 2012 - 04:38 AM |
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Joined: Dec 30, 2004
Posts: 8742
Location: Melbourne,Australia
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| Another happy customer! I'm glad you grasped the concept and changed the code to suit your requirements. |
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Posted: Jun 27, 2012 - 11:05 AM |
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Joined: Jan 14, 2012
Posts: 116
Location: New Zealand
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He is not the only one Mate.
I myself really have found this tutorial extremely useful I dont know if it was because i am actually new into RTOS & Multitasking, But I very much appreciated all the effort you put into this tutorial man. except that i forgot to say Thank you 
I really wanted to thank you Kartman, Cliff, Johan, and many other moderators here
at avrfreaks who really put a lot of effort into helping us.
Cheers Guys. |
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