Federate info

The FederateInfo structure contains information that can be passed to a federation upon construction. Some information can be updated continuously other can be only be changed before initializationMode is entered.

separator [char]

the separator character between federateName and endpoint or publications that are not declared global. the default is ‘/’

coreName [string]

The name of the core to connect with, can be left blank to either find an available core or generate one automatically.

coreInitString [string]

Command line arguments that are passed to the core when starting it. Some examples are:

  • “-f2” to specify 2 federates will connect

  • “-f1 –broker=192.168.2.3:23444” to specify a single federate and to connect to a broker at ipaddress 192.168.2.3 port 23444

coreType [enum]

Specify which type of core to use. See core types for more details

They can be generated from a string using the

core_type coreTypeFromString (std::string type) noexcept

function call. The function

bool isCoreTypeAvailable (core_type type) noexcept;

will check if the specified core type is available in the current build of the library on a specific platform.

broker [string]

specify the broker to connect to, can be an ipaddress, or a name of the broker depending on the core type and federation configuration.

localport [string]

The local ip port to use for incoming connections. This is usually a number but depending on the system some ports can be named.

properties [bool]

Federate info structures accept properties as either Time values, integers, or flag values (bool). These are entered through the setProperty calls or the setFlagOption call. The function calls take a propertyID and a value. For a description of the available options see Timing and helics_enums and helics_definitions

Timing control variables

see timing for more details.

timeDelta[time]

the minimum time advance allowed by the federate default timeEpsilon

outputDelay[time]

The amount of time values and messages take to propagate to be available to external federates. default= 0

inputDelay[time]

the time it takes values and messages to propagate to be accessible to the Federate default=0

period[time]

a period value, all granted times must be on this period n*Period+offset default=0

offset[time]

offset to the time period default=0

rt_lag[time]

real time tolerance - the maximum time grants can lag real time before HELICS automatically acts default=0.2 given this operates on a computer clock, time <0.005 are not going be very accurate or followed that closely unless the OS is specifically setup for that sort of timing level

rt_lead[time]

real time tolerance - the maximum time grants can lead real time before HELICS forces an additional delay default 0.1

Timing flags

  • observer = false flag indicating that the federate is an observer

  • uninterruptible =false flag indicating that the federate should never return a time other than requested

  • source_only = false; flag indicating that the federate does not receive or do anything with received information.

  • only_transmit_on_change =false flag indicating that values should only updated if the number has actually changes

  • only_update_on_change = false flag indicating values should be discarded if they are not changed from previous values

  • wait_for_current_time_updates = false flag indicating that the federate should only grant when no more messages can be received at the current time

  • realtime = false flag indicating that the federate is required to operate in real time. the federate must have a non-zero period

  • slow_responding = false flag indicating that the federate might be slow to respond to internal pings or take a long time between steps

Other Controls

maxIterations[int16]

the maximum number of iterations allowed for the federate default=50

logLevel[int32]

the logging level above which not to log to file default 1(WARNING)