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Agent

Link to the Agent module (source code documentation)

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Introduction

The IDEA::Agent module contains code which has the following responsiblities:

• Coordinating message traffic to and from the IDEA::Agent via an IDEA::AgentRelay instance
• Coordinating the internal time and scheduling and handling time events for the agent via an IDEA::AgentTimingService instance
• Handling a time event via a IDEA::TimeEventHandler instance
• Defines Command line options for an IDEA::Agent

Coordinating the internal time and scheduling and handling time events for the agent

Each agent must have a notion of time to be able to plan and execute. The IDEA::Agent represents time in the datastructure IDEA::Time and maintains a clock via an instance of IDEA::AgentTimingService.

Handling a time event

An IDEA::Agent is an event driven system and we distinguish the following high level events:

Wakeup event

A wakeup event is a scheduled event to wakeup the agent, the behavior associated with this event depends on the IDEA::TimeEventHandler instance registered to the IDEA::AgentTimingService.

Reboot event

A reboot event is a scheduled event to reboot the agent, the behavior associated with this event depends on the IDEA::TimeEventHandler instance registered to the IDEA::AgentTimingService.

Coordinating message traffic to and from the IDEA::Agent

An IDEA::Agent communicates with external systems via incomming and outgoing messages.

Incomming messages can come in at any given time and the IDEA::AgentRelay instance will notify the appropriate IDEA::Reactor instance of the incomming message, the behavior associated with the message depends on the IDEA::Reactor instance notified. Examples of IDEA::Reactor instance are a ReactivePlanner (seperate module) or a IDEA::ShutdownReactor.

Outgoing messages are coordinated by the IDEA::AgentRelay instance. The IDEA::AgentRelay creates the appropriate data structures and notifies the appropriate IDEA::ComRelay instance, the way (technology) the message will be send out depends on the IDEA::ComRelay instance notified.

Command line options for an IDEA::Agent

Independent of the application invoking the agent classes some of the classes will assume you provide some command line options:

Command line options:

• -f name of the file containing objects/timelines to print
• -h help, prints the usage
• -i initial state file, mandatory
• -m model, file-name of the XIDDL-model, mandatory
• -o general output level {low,medium,high,debug}, mandatory
• -p poolname of the shared memory where the timing service resides (default 'TimingService')
• -s modules file name, containing location of shared libraries making up the modules loaded before initialization, mandatory
• -v enable creation of visualization data
• -x modules file name which will be loaded after instantiating an agent and reactiveplanner

Todo:

Create section on the pattern used to extend the command line options etc...

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