QP/C++ Tutorial

This QP/C++ Tutorial is adapted from Chapter 1 of Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++, Second Edition
by Miro Samek, the founder and president of Quantum Leaps, LLC.

This Tutorial presents an example project implemented entirely with the QP/C event-driven platform using UML state machines and the event-driven paradigm. The example application is an interactive "Fly 'n' Shoot"-type game. My aim in this section is to show the essential elements of the method in a real, nontrivial program, but without getting bogged down in details, rules, and exceptions. At this point, I am not trying to be complete or even precise, although this example is meant to show a good design and the recommended coding style. I don't assume that you know much about UML state machines, the UML notation, or the event-driven programming. I will either briefly introduce the concepts, as needed, or refer you to the the Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++, Second Edition book for more details. The example "Fly 'n' Shoot" game is based on the "Quickstart" application provided in source code with the ARM Cortex-M3 LM3S811 evaluation kit (see Figure 2-2) from Luminary Micro (http://www.luminarymicro.com). I was trying to make the "Fly 'n' Shoot" example behave quite similarly to the original Luminary Micro "Quickstart" application, so that you can directly compare the event-driven approach with the traditional solution to essentially the same problem specification.

• 1. Installing QP/C++ and Building QP Libraries and Applications
• 2. Let's Play
• 3. The main() Function
• 4. Designing an Event-Driven Application
• 5. Elaborating State Machines of Active Objects
• 6. Defining Event Signals and Event Parameters
• 7. Coding Hierarchical State Machines
• 8. Using the Built-in Real-Time Kernels and Third-Party RTOSes
• 9. Using Software Tracing for Testing and Debugging
• 10. Comparison to the Traditional Approach
• 11. Summary

Note:

The standard QP/C distribution contains two versions of the game. A DOS version is provided for the standard Windows-based PC so that you don't need any special embedded board to play the game and experiment with the code. Also provided is an embedded version for the inexpensive ARM Corterx-M3-based LM3S811 evaluation kit from Luminary Micro. Both the PC and the ARM-Cortex versions use the exact same source code for all application components and differ only in the Board Support Package (BSP).

Next: 1. Installing QP/C++ and Building QP Libraries and Applications

Copyright © 2002-2010 Quantum Leaps, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.state-machine.com