C++ hard-real-time active library: syntax, semantics, and compilation of Tice programs

Abstract

General-purpose programming languages C and C++ address only the functional aspect of programs. In contrast, real-time programming languages address not only the functional aspect but also the nonfunctional real-time aspect to automatically ensure the consistency of both aspects in the resulting code. Despite many real-time programming languages proposed in the literature, embedded and real-time programs for economical reasons have continued to be written in C/C++ with their real-time aspect being dealt separately using modeling tools (e.g., MATLAB/Simulink) and the consistency of both aspects being checked manually. As embedded and real-time systems permeate through people's lives, it becomes increasingly imperative that both aspects be kept consistent automatically to improve the reliability of the systems. To that end, we propose a real-time programming language called Tice with three novel features: (1) Tice programs are written as modern standard C++ programs. (2) Tice programs can be compiled using any modern off-the-shelf standard C++ compiler. (3) Tice programs compose with other C/C++ programs as C++ libraries. These novel features make Tice significantly more economical than other real-time programming languages proposed in the literature.