Variants in graphical modeling environments

• US 8,386,222 B2
• Filed: 06/04/2010
• Issued: 02/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The MathWorks, Inc.
• Original Assignee: The MathWorks, Inc.
• Inventors: Ciolfi, John Edward, Guo, Yang, Mani, Ramamurthy
• Primary Examiner(s): Thangavelu, Kandasamy
• Assistant Examiner(s): OCHOA, JUAN CARLOS
• Application Number:
  US12/794,290
• Publication Number:
  US 20100241409A1
• Time in Patent Office: 998 Days
• Field of Search: 703/6
• US Class Current: 703/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2111/02 CAD in a network environment, e.g. collaborative CAD or distributed simulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30

Abstract

This invention allows users to build, manipulate, and finally deploy various model configurations with little performance overhead, better syntactic clarity and configuration flexibility.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving an indication to select a first variant of an element, the element being part of a block diagram model, the first variant of the element including at least one computational section between end points representing a first execution implementation of a portion of the block diagram model, the element further having a second variant including at least one computational section between the end points representing a second execution implementation of the portion of the block diagram model, the first and second execution implementations being mutually exclusive of each other; and

in response to the indication, compiling the block diagram model using the first execution implementation and not using the second execution implementation.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

making the first execution implementation active to cause the first execution implementation to be used when compiling the block diagram model; and

making the second execution implementation inactive to cause the second execution implementation to not be used when compiling the block diagram model.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

swapping out the second execution implementation to make the second execution implementation inactive.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

saving the block diagram model, the saved block diagram model including the first execution implementation and not the second execution implementation.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

pruning the second execution implementation from the block diagram model; and

saving the block diagram model after the second execution implementation has been pruned from the block diagram model.

6. A method comprising:

selecting a first variant of an element from among a plurality of variants of the element, the element being part of a block diagram model, the first variant of the element including at least one computational section between end points representing a first execution implementation of a portion of the block diagram model, the element further having a second variant including at least one computational section between end points of the element, among the plurality of variants of the element, representing a second execution implementation of the portion of the block diagram model, and the first and second execution implementations being mutually exclusive of each other;

in response to the selecting, making the first execution implementation active and making the second execution implementation inactive; and

compiling the block diagram model, the compiled block diagram model including the first execution implementation due to the first execution implementation being active and excluding the second execution implementation due to the second execution implementation being inactive.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein making the second execution implementation inactive further comprises:

commenting out a block in the block diagram model, the block being associated with the second execution implementation.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

displaying a block diagram of the block diagram model, the block diagram including a first block associated with the second execution implementation and a second block associated with the first execution implementation, the second block being presented differently than the first block, in the displayed block diagram, to indicate that the second block is associated with an implementation that is inactive.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

generating an in-memory executable version of the block diagram model from the compiled block diagram model.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

generating code from the compiled block diagram model.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the generated code is minimal code.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable medium for storing one or more computer-executable instructions, the medium comprising one or more instructions for:

selecting a first variant of an element, the element being part of a block diagram model, the first variant of the element including at least one computational section between end points representing a first execution implementation of a portion of the block diagram model, the element further having a second variant including at least one computational section between end points representing a second execution implementation of the portion of the block diagram model, and the first and second execution implementations being mutually exclusive of each other; and

in response to the selecting, compiling the block diagram model using the first execution implementation and not using the second execution implementation.

13. The medium of claim 12, further comprising one or more instructions for:

swapping in the first execution implementation to make the first execution implementation active; and

swapping out the second execution implementation to make the second execution implementation inactive, wherein the first execution implementation is used in the compiling of the block diagram model based on the first execution implementation being active and the second execution implementation is not used in the compiling of the block diagram model based on the second execution implementation being inactive.

14. The medium of claim 12, further comprising one or more instructions for:

in response to the selecting, making the first execution implementation active and making the second execution implementation inactive; and

displaying a block diagram of the block diagram model, the block diagram including a first block associated with the second execution implementation and a second block associated with the first execution implementation, the second block being presented differently than the first block, in the displayed block diagram, to indicate that the second block is associated with an implementation that is inactive.

15. The medium of claim 12, further comprising one or more instructions for:

pruning the second execution implementation from the block diagram model; and

saving the block diagram model after the second execution implementation has been pruned from the block diagram model.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium for storing one or more computer-executable instructions, the medium comprising one or more instructions for:

receiving an indication to select a first variant of an element, the element being part of a block diagram model, the first variant of the element including at least one computational section between end points representing a first execution implementation of a portion of the block diagram model, the element further having a second variant including at least one computational section between end points representing a second execution implementation of the portion of the block diagram model, and the first and second execution implementations being mutually exclusive of each other;

based on the indication, swapping in the first execution implementation to make the first execution implementation active and swapping out the second execution implementation to make the second execution implementation inactive; and

compiling the block diagram model, the compiled block diagram model including the first execution implementation based on the first execution implementation being active and not including the second execution implementation based on the second execution implementation being inactive.

17. The medium of claim 16, further comprising one or more instructions for:

commenting out a block in the block diagram model, the block being associated with the second execution implementation.

18. The medium of claim 16, further comprising one or more instructions for:

displaying a block diagram of the block diagram model, the block diagram including a first block associated with the second execution implementation and a second block associated with the first execution implementation, the second block being presented differently than the first block, in the displayed block diagram, to indicate that the second block is associated with an implementation that is not included in the compiled block diagram model.

19. The medium of claim 16, further comprising one or more instructions for:

generating code from the compiled block diagram model.

20. The medium of claim 19, wherein the generated code is minimal code.