Re: [jade-develop] How do I block all subsequent behaviours whilst my agent receives anumber of incoming messages?

Subject: Re: [jade-develop] How do I block all subsequent behaviours whilst my agent receives anumber of incoming messages?
From: James Cole (james@cs.keele.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Mar 18 2003 - 14:53:34 MET

Hi Steve,

There seem to be two issues here.

1.
Wait until all 8 messages have been received.

All my agents have a thread where agent actions are initiated. This thread loops continually, and, being state controlled, will branch when certain criteria are fulfilled.

This could work well for you. When a message arrives, it could increment a variable. This variable will eventually reach a point where it equals the desired number of messages. The loop, which will be testing for this (e.g. messagesReceived == numberOfMessages) could initiate subsequent operations.
Inner class of MyAgent:

public class AgentLoop extends Thread{
        public boolean FINISHED = false;
        private MyAgent myAgent;

        AgentLoop(){
            myAgent = getReference();
            start();
        }

        public void run(){
            while(!FINISHED){
                if(messagesReceived == numberOfMessages){
                    //initiate operations here... add behaviours etc...
                }
            }
        }
}

2.
How to implement a more effective and elegant receive behaviour.

I'm not sure if this is good JADE but I create a ReceiveBehaviour that I add in setup():

class ReceiveBehaviour extends SimpleBehaviour{
        MyAgent myAgent;
        ReceiveBehaviour(MyAgent myAgent){
            super(myAgent);
            this.myAgent = myAgent;
        }
    
        public boolean done(){
            return false;
        }
        public void action(){
            ACLMessage msg = myAgent.receive();
            if (msg == null){
                block();
            }
            else{
                switch (msg.getPerformative()){
                    case ACLMessage.AGREE:
                        if(msg.getContent().equals("WHATEVER")){
                            myAgent.someHandlingMethod(msg);
                        break;
                      .......
                }
            }
        }
}

It will receive all messages and filters them according to the message performative.

This seems to be quite a good solution, can anyone identify any downsides?

James
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Steve
  To: jade-develop@sharon.cselt.it
  Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 1:06 PM
  Subject: [jade-develop] How do I block all subsequent behaviours whilst my agent receives anumber of incoming messages?

  Hi Jaders

  Im trying to understand agent behaviours and have come across a problem...

  I send about 8 messages to an agent. It is vital that the agent receive all 8 messages before it does anything else. I need a way of blocking all subsequent behaviours until all messages have arrived and their content data stored. Is there an elegant way of doing this? So far I call my receiver behaviour (SimpleBehaviour()) 8 times. It works but I am sure this is not the best approach.

   

  Any help would be much appreciated

  PS. Many thanks to James and David for the previous help

   

  Steve.

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Hi Steve,
 
There seem to be two issues here.
 
1.
Wait until all 8 messages have been received.
 
All my agents have a thread where agent actions are initiated. This thread loops continually, and, being state controlled, will branch when certain criteria are fulfilled.
 
This could work well for you. When a message arrives, it could increment a variable. This variable will eventually reach a point where it equals the desired number of messages. The loop, which will be testing for this (e.g. messagesReceived == numberOfMessages) could initiate subsequent operations.
Inner class of MyAgent:
 
public class AgentLoop extends Thread{
        public boolean                      FINISHED = false;
        private MyAgent                    myAgent;

        AgentLoop(){
            myAgent = getReference();
            start();
        }
 
        public void run(){
            while(!FINISHED){
                if(messagesReceived == numberOfMessages){
                    //initiate operations here... add behaviours etc...
                }
            }
        }
}
 
2.
How to implement a more effective and elegant receive behaviour.
 
I'm not sure if this is good JADE but I create a ReceiveBehaviour that I add in setup():
 
class ReceiveBehaviour extends SimpleBehaviour{
        MyAgent myAgent;
        ReceiveBehaviour(MyAgent myAgent){
            super(myAgent);
            this.myAgent = myAgent;
        }
   
        public boolean done(){
            return false;
        }
        public void action(){
            ACLMessage msg = myAgent.receive();
            if (msg == null){
                block();
            }
            else{
                switch (msg.getPerformative()){
                    case ACLMessage.AGREE:
                        if(msg.getContent().equals("WHATEVER")){
                            myAgent.someHandlingMethod(msg);
                        break;
                      .......
                }
            }    
        }
}
 
It will receive all messages and filters them according to the message performative.
 
This seems to be quite a good solution, can anyone identify any downsides?
 
James
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve
To: jade-develop@sharon.cselt.it
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 1:06 PM
Subject: [jade-develop] How do I block all subsequent behaviours whilst my agent receives anumber of incoming messages?

Hi Jaders

 

Im trying to understand agent behaviours and have come across a problem... 

 

I send about 8 messages to an agent. It is vital that the agent receive all 8 messages before it does anything else.  I need a way of blocking all subsequent behaviours until all messages have arrived and their content data stored.  Is there an elegant way of doing this?  So far I call my receiver behaviour (SimpleBehaviour()) 8 times.  It works but I am sure this is not the best approach.

 

Any help would be much appreciated

 

PS.  Many thanks to James and David for the previous help

 

Steve.  
 

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