Real-Time Java Platform Programming

Product Author Bios

PETER DIBBLE, a member of the team that created the Real-Time Specification for the Java platform, was also on the Microware Systems Corporation team that first ported the Sun Java platform to an embedded system and produced the first version of Personal Java technology for a commercial RTOS. He has over a decade's experience with real-time system software and is author of OS-9 Insights and The Complete Guide to OS-9.

Build powerful real-time Java platform applications.

• The authoritative reference to the Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ)—by one of its creators
• Complete introduction to Java-based RT development—no real-time experience necessary
• Covers scheduling, asynchronous transfer control, timers, non-heap memory, garbage collection, performance tradeoffs, program structure, and more

Written for experienced Java platform developers, this practical guide provides a solid grounding in real-time programming. Dibble, a member of the RTSJ expert group, starts with an overview of real-time issues unique to the Java platform. He then explains how to use each major feature of the RTSJ.

From broad real-time principles to detailed programming pitfalls, Real-Time Java Platform Programming covers everything you need to know to build effective RT programs. Key topics include:

• Interoperability with non-RT code, tradeoffs in real-time development, and RT issues for the JVMtm software
• Garbage collection, non-heap access, physical and "immortal" memory, and constant-time allocation of non-heap memory
• Priority scheduling, deadline scheduling, and rate monotonic analysis
• Closures, asynchronous transfer of control, asynchronous events, and timers

State-of-the-art information for RT developers:

• Threads scheduling
• Real-time scheduling
• Raw memory access
• Performance tradeoffs
• Recommended practices
• Implementation hints
• Dozens of code examples and step-by-step walk-throughs

Online Sample Chapter

Introduction to the Real-Time Java Platform

Preface

You can treat this book as two closely-related books. Chapters 1 through 7 are background that might help understand the RTSJ. The remainder of the book is about the RTSJ itself. If you already understand real-time scheduling, or you donUt care about scheduling and want to get directly to the code, you can start at Chapter 8 and read from that point on. Other than possibly skipping the first seven chapters, I do not recommend skipping around. Few of the chapters can stand by themselves. After youUve skimmed the book once, it can work as reference material, but I suggest that you start by reading the book sequentially.

This book is intended to serve as part of a set comprising three elements: the RTSJ specification, the reference implementation, and this book. You can find the specification and the reference implementation through www.phptr.com/dibble or www.rtj.org. The preliminary RTSJ document is part of the Addison-Wesley Java Series. It is available in hard copy through your favorite book store. However, the preliminary RTSJ has been superseded by the final, version 1.0, version. At this time, the final specification is only available as downloadable PDF and HTML.

The reference implementation is a complete and usable implementation of the RTSJ for Linux. Almost every example in this book was tested on the reference implementation. I have used the reference implementation on PCs running Red Hat Linux and TimeSys Linux, and it should work with other versions of X86 Linux as well, but the reference implementation relies on the underlying operating system for scheduling, so you will find that features like priority inversion avoidance will depend on the version of Linux you use.

The source code for the reference implementation is available. Some of it is descended from the Sun CVM. That is available under the Sun community source license. The parts of the reference implementation that are not related to Sun code are covered under a less restrictive open source license.

Although the reference implementation is excellent for experimentation, it is not designed for commercial use. It does not take the care with performance or memory use that youUd expect from a commercial product.

You can find links to important web sites, corrections and extensions to this book, and probably other useful things like source code at www.phptr.com/dibble

Table of Contents

Preface.


Introduction.


1. Landscape.