Method of managing programs for distributed processing systems and apparatus therefor

Abstract: In a distributed processing system which distributively performs a series of processes for a work at a plurality of processing units (2i) connected to a common transmission path (3) and having a circuit (2i, 1i) for transmitting information from a processing unit to the common transmission path, a circuit (2i, 1i) for receiving from the common transmission path the information required for the processing of a program stored in each processing unit, and a circuit (2i, 1i) for detecting if all the information required for the processing of the program has been collected, performing the processing of the program using the collected information as input information for the processing and transmitting the processed result data to the common transmission path, a method of managing programs includes the steps of: transmitting a program stored in each processing unit or a program newly generated or modified by each processing unit, together with program generation information, to the common transmission path; and discriminating a difference between generations of a plurality of developed programs.

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing programs for distributed processing systems and more particularly, to a program managing method and apparatus suitable for developing programs at a plurality of processing units while definitely maintaining mutual relationship between the developed programs. Conventionally, programs have been developed in a centralized manner. Therefore, in developing a new version program from an original program by way of its modification/addition, the new program has been assigned only a serial number (generation number) representative of the number of revisions added to the original program. It therefore becomes possible to judge how old a developed program is. (Refer to the description of JP-A-60-252952, for example). This conventional method however does not consider such a case wherein in a distributed processing system having a plurality of processing units, a new program is developed by a processing unit by performing modification/addition of a certain program developed by another processing unit. In such a case, if the above conventional method is used, there is a possibility of assigning a same generation number to programs having different contents. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for managing programs for a distributed processing system wherein each of a plurality of processing units can independently discriminate programs developed by a plurality of processing units, without providing a centralized management function of the system to grasp mutual relationship therebetween and identify a particular generation. This object is met by the method characterised in claim 1 and by the apparatus characterised in claim 7. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a distributed processing system for practicing the program management method of this invention; Fig. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of a processing unit in the distributed processing system shown in Fig. 1; Fig. 3 shows an example of the format of a message to be transmitted over a transmission path; Fig. 4 illustrates an example of developing a program using the program management method of this invention; Fig. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a mutual relationship between programs during a program generation management by the method of this invention; and Fig. 6 is a flow chart showing an example of the procedure of setting generation management information. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of this invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of the arrangement of a distributed processing system for practicing the method of this invention. In the distributed processing system, each processing unit 11, 12, ..., 1n can be mutually coupled, via a common transmission path 3, by using each transmission control unit 21, 22, ..., 2n connected to each associated processing unit. As shown in Fig. 2, each processing unit 1i is constructed of a memory unit 80, interface units 30 and 50, a terminal unit 60 and a processor 40. The terminal unit 60 has man-machine interfaces such as a video data terminal (VDT) and a keyboard so that a user can perform modification/addition of a program by using development tools such as software editors, compilers and linkers contained in the processing unit. Fig. 3 shows an example of the transmission format of information flowing on the common transmission path. The information flowing on the transmission path is checked by the transmission control unit of each processing unit of the distributed processing system. An information content code 100 is read to judge if it is a desired code or not. In case of a desired code, the information is sent to the processing unit and read as input data for a particular program among those programs stored in the processing unit, the program being executed after processing all the information having desired codes. (Desired codes are stored in the memory unit of the transmission control unit, the detail of which is described, e.g., in JP-A-57-146361). The contents of a program made at least by one of the processing units in the distributed processing system and transmitted over the common transmission path are written in a data area 130 shown in Fig. 3. Information on the program written in the data area is written in a program information area 110. The program information represents the contents of the program concerned, which can be described, e.g., using its input/output relation (by an input content code and an output content code representative of a processed result). By reading the program information, it becomes possible to identify the contents of the program flowing on the transmission path. The program information can be set from the terminal unit 60 or external equipment shown in Fig. 2 in a man-machine manner when the modification/addition for the program was performed. Generation information of the program is written in a generation management information area 120. The generation information is added to the program in order to recognize that the program was revised by one or more processing units. It is used to discriminate between programs which undergone a revision such as partial addition, deletion or replacement without changing the program content (input/output relation). Items set in the generation management information area 120 are as in the following: (a) Generation Start Atom Code 1201 This code (processing number, address or the like) identifies a processing unit which first generated the program. The phrase "first generated" means herein that the program information was newly entered for the program generated at or modified by a processing unit. Particularly, even if only a partial modification is made to a program, if the program input/output relation changes and the program information area 110 is rewritten, it is considered that a new program was generated having a new (first) generation. On the other hand, if the program information area 110 does not change, the programs before and after modification are considered as having the same content (only with a change in generation number). A change in input/output relation of the program is determined based on a relation between the input data content code and the output data content code representative of the processed result by the program. Namely, at the end of modification of the program, the program information area is checked. If the data content codes are different from those before the modification, it is considered that a new generation program was generated. This is also true for the case where a program is generated from a plurality of different programs. Namely, (1) if the input/output relation of a modified program is the same as that of any one of a plurality of programs from which the program was generated, then the first-mentioned program succeeds the generation information of the second-mentioned program if any, and (2) if there is no such program within the plurality of programs as having the same input/output relation, then the first-mentioned program is considered as having a new (first) generation. The above case (1) corresponds to the case where a partial addition or replacement of a program was performed, and the case (2) corresponds to the case where a program quite different from the plurality of programs was generated. (b) Generation Renewal Atom Codes 1211 to 121n These codes are used for the program undergone the modification. There are provided n ( n is 1 or more) areas for the generation renewal atom codes so that generation renewal atom codes up to n generations can be written. Of the n areas of this embodiment, the area for the code 121n represents the processing unit which last brought about the renewal, and the area for the code 1211 represents the processing unit which brought about the renewal n times before. (c) Generation Renewal Number 1220 The number indicates the number of renewals after the program was first generated (i.e., after the program information area was first set). An example of setting the generation management information area 120 described above is shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 4 shows the processes how a program is generated and modified by five processing units A to E at 11 to 15 which are coupled together by the common transmission path 3 indicated by 11 to 15 (with transmission control units omitted in the Figure). Of the message flowing on the common transmission path 3, only the generation management information is shown in Fig. 4. In this example, it is assumed that the number of generation renewal atom code areas is two, so that two atom codes for the program having an identical program information area are added, one code being for the last renewal and the other for the second last renewal. The last renewal atom code is written alternately at the right and left areas of the two code areas. Fig. 5 shows an example of mutual relation between the arrangement of developed programs and added information to the generation management information area, while a plurality of distributed processing units are developing programs by using the method of this invention. Each processing unit checks programs received from the transmission path. Even if the programs are judged, by monitoring the program information areas, that they have the same program contents, the programs can be discriminated as to their difference, the number of renewals and the renewal history, by monitoring the generation management information areas. Referring to Fig. 5, new programs are first generated at 501 and 502 and thereafter subjected to modification by processing units A to F. The programs first generated at 501 and 502 and thereafter subjected to modification by each processing unit increase the number of renewals by 1 at each modification. The increase in number of modifications means that only a partial modification has been performed to the program and the input/output relation of the program was not changed. However, at the processing unit 503, a new program is first generated from two programs having different input/output relation so that the number of generation renewals of the program outputted from the processing unit 503 has been reset at 1. Thus, in the following processes, the program is considered as quite a new one. Fig. 6 is a flow chart showing the setting procedure of generation management information by a processing unit. First, if it is decided (at step 6001) that a developed objective program is a newly generated one, its own atom code is set in the generation start atom code 1201 area (step 6011) to then set the number of generation renewals at 1 (step 6012). If it is decided (at step 6001) that the developed objective program is a modified one of an already generated program, a renewal area m of the generation renewal atom code areas is obtained (step 6021) to set its own atom code in the m generation renewal atom code area and count up the generation renewal number by 1 (step 6023). The number of generation renewal atom areas is represented by n in Fig. 6. In the example shown in Fig. 6, in order to set the generation renewal atom code area, the modulo of the area number is used to determine the area in which a generation renewal number is to be set. The setting method is not limited thereto, but other setting methods may be applied. For example, if the renewal is repeated a number of times greater than the number of areas, the areas may be shifted by one to erase the area set earliest. According to the present invention, in developing programs at a plurality of processing units in a distributed processing system while definitely maintaining mutual relationship between the developed programs (e.g., in developing programs based on a starting program by modifying it at a plurality of processing units in parallel, or modifying it at different positions thereof sequentially at a plurality of processing units), the generations of and mutual relation between the programs can be readily recognized. Further, according to the present invention, a centralized management function for managing the whole of programs is not needed at all, and programs can be developed without influences by the increase of processing units in the system or the failure of processing unit(s).

Claims: A method of managing programs for a distributed processing system which distributively performs a series of processes at a plurality of processing units (1i) connected to a common transmission path (3), comprising the steps of: transmitting a program from one of said processing units (e.g. 11), which generated the program, to said common transmission path (3), receiving the program by at least one of the other processing units (e.g. 12) connected to the transmission path (3), and modifying the program by one of the receiving processing units (e.g. 12), characterised in that said transmitting step includes transmitting with the program a generation management information (120) which includes a first discriminating code identifying the processing unit (e.g. 11) which generated the program, and that said modifying step includes managing said generation management information (120) by adding thereto a second discriminating code identifying the processing unit (e.g. 12) which modified the program. The method of claim 1, wherein said transmitting step further includes transmitting with said program a content code (100) representative of the content of the program. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein said generation management information (120) includes information representative of the number of modifications of the program. The method of any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the program generated by said one processing unit (e.g. 11) and the program modified by the other processing units (1i) are transmitted via said transmission path (3) and each processing unit (1i) determines differences between a plurality of received programs on the basis of said generation management information (120) associated therewith. The method of claim 4, wherein said managing step includes replacing the said generation management information (120) with new generation management information if the relationship between input data and output data of the program has been altered as a result of said program modification, the new generation management information including a discriminating code identifying at least one of said other processing units (e.g. 12) as that which generated the program. The method of claim 4 or 5, wherein said adding step includes adding said discriminating code the generation management information (120) of anyone of a plurality of programs received which has the same relation between its input data and its output data as the modified program. An apparatus for managing programs for a distributed processing system including a plurality of processing units (1i) adapted for distributively performing a series of processes and being connected to a common transmission path (3), wherein each processing unit (1i) includes means for transmitting a program which it has generated to said transmission path (3), and means for modifying a program received from said transmission path (3), characterised in that said transmitting means includes means for transmitting with the program a generation management information (120) which includes a first discriminating code identifying the processing unit which generated the program, and that said modifying means includes means for adding to said generation management information (120) a second discriminating code identifying the respective processing unit which modified the program.

Inventors: KASASHIMA HIROKAZU, KAWANO KATSUMI, KOIZUMI MINORU, MORI KINJI, NAKAI KOZO, ORIMO MASAYUKI, SUZUKI YASUO, KASASHIMA, HIROKAZU, KAWANO, KATSUMI, KOIZUMI, MINORU, MORI, KINJI, NAKAI, KOZO, ORIMO, MASAYUKI, SUZUKI, YASUO
Applicants: HITACHI LTD, HITACHI, LTD.
Application year: 1988
Main classification: G06F9
IPC codes: G06F9, G06F15