| WP1 - RTOS State of the Art Analysis: Deliverable D1.1 - RTOS Analysis | ||
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There are three scheduling policies available: SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_SPORADIC SCHED_EDF. SCHED_FIFO is a fixed priority scheduling and threads with the same priority are scheduled in FIFO order. SCHED_SPORADIC an implementaion of the sporadic server used to run aperiodic activities. SCHED_EDF implements a dynamic priority scheduling policy the EDF ( Earliest Deadline First). Each thread has a fixed priority and a deadline. Threads are sorted by priority, but same priority threads are scheduled according to the EDF policy.
The system provides special system calls to implement periodic threads. pthread_make_periodic_np() and pthread_wait_np()
Minimum and maximum priority is 0 and 1000000 respectively. There is no limit in the number of running threads, but the scheduling cost is proportional to the number of threads. Current scheduler code is designed to handle efficiently a low number of threads (around 10).
It provides all the POSIX Thread termination facilities and also some extensions to remove termitate threads easier.
A thread can terminate itself by calling pthread_exit() function. pthread_join() suspend execution the execution of the calling thread until the target thread terminates. To implement this behavior, when a thread exits, the system do not delete the supporting data until other thread has joined. The system also provides the pthread_detach() function to indicate that the target thread will not be joined and the system support data can be reclaimed as soon as the thread exits.
A thread can request the cancellation (termination) of other thread: pthread_cancel(). The thread that receives the cancellation request, depending on the cancelability state, can do one o the following action:
PTHREAD_CANCEL_DISABLE: The cancel request is ignored.
PTHREAD_CANCEL_DEFERRED: The thread will be canceled but only at some safe points.
PTHREAD_CANCEL_ASYNCHRONOUS:The thread is canceled immediately.
A thread can install cancellation cleanup handlers: pthread_cleanup_push() and pthread_cleanup_pop(). The cleanup handlers are called when the thread exits, is canceled or the handler is removed.
pthread_delete_np() function can be used to termintate inmediately a thread and can be used instead of the pair: pthread_cancel()/pthread_join()