Conditions

The following table shows various states of the scheduling status of an operator:

By default, operators are always READY, meaning they are scheduled to continuously execute their compute() method. To change that behavior, some condition classes can be passed to the constructor of an operator. There are various conditions currently supported in the Holoscan SDK:

• MessageAvailableCondition

• DownstreamMessageAffordableCondition

• CountCondition

• BooleanCondition

• PeriodicCondition

• AsynchronousCondition

Conditions are AND-combined

An Operator can be associated with multiple conditions which define it’s execution behavior. Conditions are AND combined to describe the current state of an operator. For an operator to be executed by the scheduler, all the conditions must be in READY state and conversely, the operator is unscheduled from execution whenever any one of the scheduling term reaches NEVER state. The priority of various states during AND combine follows the order NEVER, WAIT_EVENT, WAIT, WAIT_TIME, and READY.

An operator associated with MessageAvailableCondition is executed when the associated queue of the input port has at least a certain number of elements. This condition is associated with a specific input port of an operator through the condition() method on the return value (IOSpec) of the OperatorSpec’s input() method.

The minimum number of messages that permits the execution of the operator is specified by min_size parameter (default: 1). An optional parameter for this condition is front_stage_max_size, the maximum front stage message count. If this parameter is set, the condition will only allow execution if the number of messages in the queue does not exceed this count. It can be used for operators which do not consume all messages from the queue.

This condition specifies that an operator shall be executed if the input port of the downstream operator for a given output port can accept new messages. This condition is associated with a specific output port of an operator through the condition() method on the return value (IOSpec) of the OperatorSpec’s output() method. The minimum number of messages that permits the execution of the operator is specified by min_size parameter (default: 1).

An operator associated with CountCondition is executed for a specific number of times specified using its count parameter. The scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition can either be in READY or NEVER state. The scheduling status reaches the NEVER state when the operator has been executed count number of times.

An operator associated with BooleanCondition is executed when the associated boolean variable is set to true. The boolean variable is set to true/false by calling the enable_tick()/disable_tick() methods on the BooleanCondition object. The check_tick_enabled() method can be used to check if the boolean variable is set to true/false. The scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition can either be in READY or NEVER state. If the boolean variable is set to true, the scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition is set to READY. If the boolean variable is set to false, the scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition is set to NEVER. The enable_tick()/disable_tick() methods can be called from any operator in the workflow.

            

            
  void compute(InputContext&, OutputContext& op_output, ExecutionContext&) override {
    // ...
    if (<condition expression>) {           // e.g. if (index_ >= 10)
      auto my_bool_condition = condition<BooleanCondition>("my_bool_condition");
      if (my_bool_condition) {              // if condition exists (not true or false)
        my_bool_condition->disable_tick();  // this will stop the operator
      }
    }
    // ...
  }
        

            

            
def compute(self, op_input, op_output, context):
  # ...
  if <condition expression>:              # e.g, self.index >= 10
      my_bool_condition = self.conditions.get("my_bool_condition")
      if my_bool_condition:               # if condition exists (not true or false)
        my_bool_condition.disable_tick()  # this will stop the operator
  # ...
        

An operator associated with PeriodicCondition is executed after periodic time intervals specified using its recess_period parameter. The scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition can either be in READY or WAIT_TIME state. For the first time or after periodic time intervals, the scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition is set to READY and the operator is executed. After the operator is executed, the scheduling status is set to WAIT_TIME and the operator is not executed until the recess_period time interval.

AsynchronousCondition is primarily associated with operators which are working with asynchronous events happening outside of their regular execution performed by the scheduler. Since these events are non-periodic in nature, AsynchronousCondition prevents the scheduler from polling the operator for its status regularly and reduces CPU utilization. The scheduling status of the operator associated with this condition can either be in READY, WAIT, WAIT_EVENT or NEVER states based on the asynchronous event it’s waiting on.

The state of an asynchronous event is described using AsynchronousEventState and is updated using the event_state() API.

Operators associated with this scheduling term most likely have an asynchronous thread which can update the state of the condition outside of it’s regular execution cycle performed by the scheduler. When the asynchronous event state is in WAIT state, the scheduler regularly polls for the scheduling state of the operator. When the asynchronous event state is in EVENT_WAITING state, schedulers will not check the scheduling status of the operator again until they receive an event notification. Setting the state of the asynchronous event to EVENT_DONE automatically sends the event notification to the scheduler. Operators can use the EVENT_NEVER state to indicate the end of its execution cycle.