Reactive C: An extension of C to program reactive systems

Abstract

Reactive systems are interactive programs that react continuously to sequences of activations coming from the external world. Reactive programming leads to a new programming style where one programs in terms of reactions to activations and reasons in a logic of instants. This paper describes an extension of the C programming language called RC (for 'Reactive C') to program reactive systems. The language RC is described, then some programming examples are given to illustrate the reactive approach. The main RC notions come directly from the Esterel synchronous programming language. Finally, the Esterel and RC languages are compared. KEY WORDS Reactive system C programming language Parallelism

Using C language extensions for developing embedded software: a case study

“…One processor performs the real-time metrology, the other performs higherlevel application logic and communication; the separation ensures undisturbed execution of the real-time functionality. The two processors communicate using a lightweight implementation of MQTT 4 over UARTs 5 . The application processor communicates with the outside world via RS485 and IrDA interfaces and an industry-specific communication protocol called DLMS/COSEM.…”

Synchronous programming in audio processing

“…Argos [Maraninchi 1991], Statecharts [Harel 1987], SyncCharts [André 1996], Argonaute [Maraninchi 1990], Polis [Balarin 1997], Polychrony ], Scade [Dormoy 2008], Simulink/Matlab ]; Language Extensions. ECL (C) 4 [Lavagno and Sentovich 1999], Jester (Java) [Antonotti et al 2000], Reactive-C (C) [Boussinot 1991], Real-time Concurrent C (C) [Gehani and Ramamritham 1991], RTC++ (C++) [Ishikawa et al 1992], Scoop (Eiffel) [Compton 2000], SugarCubes (Java) [Boussinot and Susini 1998]; Hardware Description Languages. Lava [Bjesse et al 1998], SystemC [Initiative 2006], Verilog [Thomas and Moorby 2002], VHDL [IEEE standard 1988]; Models and Intermediate Formats.…”

Flowpaths: Compiling stack-based IR to hardware

“…Several researchers have considered using a form of C as a hardware description language and some have developed methods for compiling C-programs directly to hardware [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. On the one hand, a programmer must consider hardware constructs when programming while on the other the programmer develops a software program with minimal consideration of the hardware target.…”

“…However, this flexibility usually requires one to be a hardware designer using a hardware description language such as VHDL or Verilog. Several methods for using a language like C as a hardware description language or to generate hardware from software have been researched over the past decade and a half [1][2][3][4][5][6][7], but in most cases the designer is still thinking in hardware terms and solutions like these have seen little commercial interest [8,9].…”

“…Several groups have explored developing unified hardware development processes and tools including formal specification languages such as LUSTRE, KRONOS, POLIS, SIGNAL, REACTIVE C, Synchronous Language (SL), LOTOS, Handel-C, SystemC and SDL [4,[10][11][12][13]. Some languages such as POLIS and LUSTRE are supplements to hardware description languages and some languages such as Handel-C are intended to develop hardware directly from software.…”