p166 LRM draft feedback

John,

Here is my feedback on the LRM draft. I think you have done a wonderful job especially in cleaning up the language throughout corresponding to items that have been changed or added.

The part that I'm not completely satisfied with is the process control constructs. More intuition and examples are necessary to make it understandable and usable to the reader.

Thanks,
-Bishnupriya

1) pg 17:
"5.2.1.2 Evaluation phase
CLARIFICATION: From the set of runnable processes, select a process instance, remove it from the set, and only then trigger or resume its execution. Run the process instance immediately and without interruption up to the point where it either returns or calls the function wait ADDITION: or calls the member function suspend of a process handle associated with the process instance itself."

The last addition is not completely true. If a method process suspends itself, it still continues to the end.

2) pg 73, "If the include_descendants argument has the value false,..."

This should say if include_descendants has the value SC_NO_DESCENDANTS

3) more examples are needed for process control; they are rather cryptic otherwise.
Need to provide intuition behind difference between suspend-resume and disable-enable using clocked threads example

4) pg 75 "By the process instance being resumed while it is in the synchronous reset state"

Here and elsewhere, is there scope for confusion with process control construct resume()? Can some other word be used?

5) pg 77, reset() mentions "sc_unwind_exception may be caught provided it is immediately re-thrown."

This should be moved to kill(), as that is where the concept is first introduced.

6) pg 77, "Calling reset before the process has first executed is permitted, but shall have no effect."

Is this true? Shouldn't reset() notify the event returned by reset_event()?

7) pg75, 76, "A process instance can be reset in one of three ways

- By a call to member function reset of a process handle associated with that process instance, which
shall reset the underlying process instance immediately
- By the process instance being resumed while it is in the synchronous reset state
- By a reset signal specified using async_reset_signal_is attaining its reset value, at which time reset
shall be called (see 6.2.13)"

For the 2nd bullet should mention reset_signal_is also - "which can happen by a reset signal specified using reset_signal_is attaining its reset value".

8) pg 79, "If a process throws an exception to itself, then on return from throw_it, control shall pass to a catch block in that function."

The throw_it() call does not really return, within that call the exception is thrown, so maybe it's better to say "if a process throws an exception to itself, the throw_it() call shall never return, and control shall pass to a catch block in the function".

9) pg 82, "When called during simulation, sc_get_current_process_handle shall return a handle to the currently executing spawned or unspawned process instance, if any. If there is no such process instance, sc_get_current_process_handle shall return an invalid handle. CLARIFICATION: When called from sc_main, sc_get_current_process_handle shall return an invalid handle."

The last line intends to say that when called from sc_main *during simulation*, sc_get_current_process_handle shall return an invalid handle. It's probably best to spell that out explicitly to eliminate any chance of confusion.

10) pg 126, "sc_object& operator= ( const sc_object& );
The assignment operator shall not modify the hierarchical name or the parent of the destination
object in the object hierarchy. In other words, the destination object shall retain its current position in the object hierarchy. Attributes and children of the destination object shall not be modified. operator= shall return a reference to *this."

I'm sure this has been discussed and I don't remember, but what is the rationale for this operator=? If all these properties are not modified, then what is modified? It will benefit the reader I think to include the rationale here.

11) pg 412, "The enumeration sc_verbosity provides the values of indicitive verbosity levels that may be passed...."

Typo should be 'indicative'.
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     Bishnupriya Bhattacharya | Software Architect - Virtual System Platform | Cadence
     P: +91.80.4184.1197 www.cadence.com<http://www.cadence.com/>
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