Description
Automatic connections link between passive (non-active) objects. An example would be a connection between a collector and a store. Requests emanating from active objects through trigger and/or manual connections are propagated through circuitry along automatic connections. When the event tree is populated (all requests granted), the events are propagated back down the tree to the root consumer (active object's trigger or manual connection) where their access and member functions allow the event tree to be inspected (see Access Functions).
Automatic Connection Types
Automatic connections are created by the translator and references to them returned by their access functions. Automatic connection 'types' are determined by their providing object types. CDL supports the following automatic connection types, each with their own member functions. Note that automatic connection member functions are a subset of their manual equivalents.
CLIP::AstAutoCxn
Arbitrated store, automatic connection
CLIP::TstAutoCxn
Transient store, automatic connection
CLIP::CsmAutoCxn
Counting semaphore, automatic connection
CLIP::LsmAutoCxn
Logical semaphore, automatic connection
CLIP::ClxAutoCxn
Collector, automatic connection
CLIP::CpxAutoCxn
Competer, automatic connection
CLIP::DbxAutoCxn
Distributor, automatic connection
CLIP::DmxAutoCxn
Demultiplexor, automatic connection
CLIP::MpxAutoCxn
Multiplexor, automatic connection
CLIP::RdxAutoCxn
Reducer, automatic connection
CLIP::SpxAutoCxn
Splitter, automatic connection
Automatic Connection Attributes
Automatic connection attributes are fixed at connection time and can be thought of as falling into three categories. Firstly there are those attributes that apply to the provider, and different providers will require different attributes. Secondly there are those attributes that apply to the consumer, and again different consumers will require different attributes. Finally there are those attributes that apply to the connection itself, and these are common to all automatic (and trigger) connections. So each particular provider type/consumer type pair will have a particular set of attributes. The nodal objects section of this documentation lists each nodal object's particular providing and/or consuming attributes.
All automatic connections have the following attributes;
Timeout
This attribute determines whether the connection will poll or block (see Connection Timeout).
Signature
This attribute is a string that describes the mapping from elements in the consumer, to elements in the provider. See Connection Editor and Connection Signature.
Name
This attribute determines the connection's 'name' which is used to construct access function names (see Connection Names).