Determination of sequential priority in a circular buffer

• Main Authors: WENDEL, DIETER, SOELL, WERNER, WERNICKE, FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 16.09.1998
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

The invention relates to a circular buffer containing a sequence of entries, and in particular to determining a sequential priority among entries which both fulfill a given condition and are contained in said sequence. This problem is not straightforward, because said sequence of entries may wrap-around in said circular buffer, which means that said sequence of entries extends beyond the last entry position of the buffer. According to the invention, first, a number of virtual entry positions, which is at least equal to the number of real entry positions in the buffer, is added to the non-occupied part of the buffer. In a second step, each entry which fulfills the given condition blocks a certain number of adjacent entries, including said virtual entries. One entry will remain which is not blocked, and which also fulfills the given condition. This entry is the entry with sequential priority.