Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Problem with gr_head in simple graph

[Dominik Auras]

Hi!

> This is the first odd thing, and I believe the cause of the problem.
> Your source does not block until it receives something.
> Generally speaking, returning 0 is a bad idea.
> 
> In the case of sources, you should block until you get something, then
> return whatever you got.
The source receives data from time to time. If I return -1 if there is
no new data, the scheduler marks my source as "done" and skips it
forever. How should I block?

> What happens when any block declares that it is done, is that
> everything is allowed to run until no further progress can be made.
> In your case, the upstream block, the tcp_source, will run until it's
> finally "output blocked" because of "back pressure" that results
> because gr.head is done.  Given that your source produces 0 output,
> it'll never see any back pressure and thus will never end.
Ok. I understand that there should be some back pressure. But in this
case, back pressure is predictable. It is just a question of the buffer
size. gr.head owns more buffer space than it will ever process.

> Philosophically, we don't stop everything as soon as any block says
> it's done, because other blocks may have side effects that we are
> still interested in (e.g., logging results), or are still able to make
> progress.
How will a block make progress, especially a source, if his outputs are
blocked?
If all outputs of the source are blocked because they are done, I think
it is a good indication that signal processing is completed.

I do not really need this outside my testcase, since in a real
application, it should not quit when the graph stops.

> Outside of your test case, what are you really trying to do?
Transferring status information in an evaluation system from a receiver
to the transmitter.

Thanks for your reply,
Dominik