June 2012
Intermediate to advanced
528 pages
15h 40m
English
Content preview from Computers as Components, 3rd Edition
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5.2 Components for Embedded Programs
In this section, we consider code for three structures or components that are commonly used in embedded software: the state machine, the circular buffer, and the queue. State machines are well suited to reactive systems such as user interfaces; circular buffers and queues are useful in digital signal processing.
5.2.1 State Machines
State machine style
When inputs appear intermittently rather than as periodic samples, it is often convenient to think of the system as reacting to those inputs. The reaction of most systems can be characterized in terms of the input received and the current state of the system. This leads naturally to a finite-state machine style of describing the reactive system’s behavior. ...