Calculating the Maximum

Execution Time of

Real-Time Programs

P. Puschner?, Ch. Koza

Institut f?ur Technische Informatik

Technische Universit?at Wien

[email protected], [email protected]

Version 1; April 7, 1989

Abstract

In real-time systems the timing behaviour is an important property of each task. It has to be guaranteed that the execution of a task does not take longer than the specified amount of time. Thus, a knowledge about the maximum execution time of programs is of utmost importance.

This paper discusses the problems for the calculation of the maximum execution time (MAXT . . . MAximum eXecution Time). It shows the preconditions which have to be met before the MAXT of a task can be calculated. Rules for the MAXT calculation are described. Triggered by the observation that in most cases the calculated MAXT far exceeds the actual execution time, new language constructs are introduced. These constructs allow programmers to put into their programs more information about the behaviour of the algorithms implemented and help to improve the self checking property of programs. As a consequence, the quality of MAXT calculations is improved significantly. In a realistic example, an improvement factor of 11 has been achieved.

?This work has been supported by Digital Equipment Corporation under contract EERP/AU- 011