clfsm is a powerful scheduler for arrangements of compiled Objective-C++ finite state machines. It compiles (using clang) and schedules .machine FSM bundles for deterministic low-latency execution.

You need a posix system a C/C++ compiler, cmake, and a build system supported by cmake, such as Ninja or gmake.

You will also need to build and install the following packages:

• gu_util
• guunits
• gucoordinates
• gusimplewhiteboard

Follow the links to the above packages for building instructions.

To build, you simply create a build directory (e.g. build.ninja) using cmake, then use your build system to build and install. Here is an example using Ninja:

mkdir ../build.ninja
cd ../build.ninja
cmake -G Ninja ../gusimplewhiteboard
ninja
ninja install

If you require root permissions, run ninja install as root, e.g. by using sudo:

sudo ninja install

clfsm [-c][-d][-fPIC]{-I includedir}{-L linkdir}{-l lib}[-n][-P <machine>][-s][-S <machine>][-v] {machines}

-c – compile only flag, don't execute machine.

-fPIC – specify to generate Position Independent Code, required by some machines.

-I includedir – include directory to add to the search path during compilation.

-L linkdir – library directory to add to the search path during linking.

-l lib – library to link against

-n – restart CLFSM after SIGABRT or SIGIOT signals.

-P

• Preload a machine. Load a machine and place it in memory, but do not add it to the schedule. This flag speeds up loading machines that are dynamically loaded and unloaded using the dynamic loading function in CLMacros (loadAndAddMachine, scheduleMachine, unscheduleMachineAtIndex, unloadMachineAtIndex). This is also advantages when using parameterised machines that are dynamically loaded (when using call_machine_at_path for example).

-s – turn on debugging output on suspend, resume, and restart of machines.

-S

• Loads a machine suspended. This flag effectively sets the current state of the machine to the machines suspend state. All machines scheduled with -S are placed at the end of the schedule in the order that they are in when invoking clfsm. Note, that the entire ringlet of the suspend state executes the first time the machine runs, including the OnEntry action. This flag is necessary when using parameterised machines that are not dynamically loaded and which should exist in the schedule waiting to be called (when using call_static_machine_at for example).

-v – Verbose: output MachineID, State, and name of machine for every state change

-d – print additional debug information (requires -v switch to be set as well).

machines – list of finite state machine bundles (with our without the .machine extension) to compile and run.

The following example shows how to run clfsm, its output, and the backtrace produced when aborting the program by pressing ^C (Control-C):

$ cd $GUNAO_DIR/posix/gufsm/clfsm/examples
$ ../build.host/clfsm -I.. PingPongCLFSM
Ping 62
Pong 63
Ping 63
^CCaught signal 2: aborting ...
000: 0   clfsm                               0x000000010ec11b39	_ZL15print_backtracei + 73
001: 1   clfsm                               0x000000010ec115f3 _ZL24backtrace_signal_handleri + 19
002: 2   libsystem_platform.dylib            0x00007fff8c949f1a _sigtramp + 26
003: 3   ???                                 0x00007fff50ff9120 0x0 + 140734552314144
004: 4   libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff91b1eb53 abort + 129
005: 5   clfsm                               0x000000010ec11a6a _ZL23aborting_signal_handleri + 794
006: 6   libsystem_platform.dylib            0x00007fff8c949f1a _sigtramp + 26
007: 7   ???                                 0x00007fff50ff98a0 0x0 + 140734552316064
008: 8   libsystem_c.dylib                   0x00007fff91b3fe50 usleep + 54
009: 9   clfsm                               0x000000010ec06697 protected_usleep + 87
010: 10  libclfsm.dylib                      0x000000010ec2a56d _ZN3FSM18CLFSMVectorFactory7executeEPFbPvPNS_18SuspensibleMachineEiES1_ + 61
011: 11  clfsm                               0x000000010ec11009 main + 6249
012: 12  libdyld.dylib                       0x00007fff8d2115c9 start + 1
Log file written to '/tmp/clfsm-tJD.log'
Abort
Exit 134
$

In the above backtrace, the interesting line is 008: this shows that the scheduler was currently in the sleep state between states (protected_usleep in trace line 009: called from the state machine vector factory's execute() function).

All finite state machines currently need to be in the same directory as the current working directory clfsm is run from. A workaround is to use a symbolic link that points to the actual locations of the corresponding .machine bundle directory.

The clfsm tool requires libclfsm to be compiled and installed in $PREFIX (typically /usr/local) first. Then, to build the clfsm tool for the host use bmake host. To install under $PREFIX, use sudo bmake install

To build the tool for the default cross-compilation target, simply use bmake robot. Alternatively, to build the tool for a different target, use bmake target TARGET=targetname.

In order to compile for ROS, you first need to export the sources into catkin_ws for ROS using bmake catkin. Again, make sure that you have exported the libclfsm catkin sources first!

To build the tool for ROS, make sure you have copied the sources into catkin_ws as described above, then simply use catkin_make. To permanently install the tool, use catkin_make install.