RTEMS C User's Guide
RTEMS provides directives which can be used to dynamically create, delete, and manipulate a set of predefined object types. These types include tasks, message queues, semaphores, memory regions, memory partitions, timers, ports, and rate monotonic periods. The object-oriented nature of RTEMS encourages the creation of modular applications built upon re-usable "building block" routines.
All objects are created on the local node as required by the application and have an RTEMS assigned ID. All objects have a user-assigned name. Although a relationship exists between an object's name and its RTEMS assigned ID, the name and ID are not identical. Object names are completely arbitrary and selected by the user as a meaningful "tag" which may commonly reflect the object's use in the application. Conversely, object IDs are designed to facilitate efficient object manipulation by the executive.
An object name is an unsigned thirty-two bit entity associated with the object by the user. Although not required by RTEMS, object names are typically composed of four ASCII characters which help identify that object. For example, a task which causes a light to blink might be called "LITE". Utilities are provided to build an object name from four ASCII characters and to decompose an object name into four ASCII characters. However, it is not required that the application use ASCII characters to build object names. For example, if an application requires one-hundred tasks, it would be difficult to assign meaningful ASCII names to each task. A more convenient approach would be to name them the binary values one through one-hundred, respectively.
An object ID is a unique unsigned thirty-two bit entity composed of three parts: object class, node, and index. The most significant six bits are the object class. The next ten bits are the number of the node on which this object was created. The node number is always one (1) in a single processor system. The least significant sixteen bits form an identifier within a particular object type. This identifier, called the object index, ranges in value from 1 to the maximum number of objects configured for this object type.
| 31 | 26 | 25 | 16 | 15 | 0 |
| Class | Node | Index |
The three components of an object ID make it possible to quickly locate any object in even the most complicated multiprocessor system. Object ID's are associated with an object by RTEMS when the object is created and the corresponding ID is returned by the appropriate object create directive. The object ID is required as input to all directives involving objects, except those which create an object or obtain the ID of an object.
The object identification directives can be used to dynamically obtain a particular object's ID given its name. This mapping is accomplished by searching the name table associated with this object type. If the name is non-unique, then the ID associated with the first occurrence of the name will be returned to the application. Since object IDs are returned when the object is created, the object identification directives are not necessary in a properly designed single processor application.
An object control block is a data structure defined by RTEMS which contains the information necessary to manage a particular object type. For efficiency reasons, the format of each object type's control block is different. However, many of the fields are similar in function. The number of each type of control block is application dependent and determined by the values specified in the user's Configuration Table. An object control block is allocated at object create time and freed when the object is deleted. With the exception of user extension routines, object control blocks are not directly manipulated by user applications.
RTEMS C User's Guide
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