Instructions

Learn how to use the Scalar Logical Clock Simulator

Interactive Controls

  • Process Management: Use the plus (+) and minus (−) buttons to add and delete processes in the simulation.
  • Clock Increment: After adding a process, you can adjust the clock increment value for that process.
  • Mode Toggle: Switch between Add and Delete modes using the respective buttons.
  • Event Addition: Click to add events on the timeline of each process.
  • Timeline Navigation: Use the scrollbar to move left and right through time.
  • Message Creation: Add messages between different processes to observe their effects.

Simulation Features

  • Event Visualization: See event times and their relationships clearly displayed.
  • Event Popups: Hover over events to view detailed timing information and clock values.
  • Causal Relationships: Visual representation of message passing and event ordering.
  • Test Mode: Challenge yourself with generated scenarios to test your understanding.

Scalar Logical Clock

  • Clock Rules: Each process maintains its own logical clock that increments with local events.
  • Message Sending: When sending a message, the process includes its current clock value.
  • Message Receiving: On receiving a message, set clock = max(local_clock, message_clock) + 1.
  • Event Ordering: Logical clocks help establish partial ordering of events in distributed systems.

Key Observations

  • Consistency: Understand how inconsistent states can occur due to message deadlocks.
  • Concurrency: Observe cases where causal relationships cannot be established between events.
  • Scalar Time Limitations: Learn why scalar clocks alone are insufficient for complete event ordering.
  • Distributed Systems: Gain insights into time synchronization challenges in distributed environments.
🖥️ This experiment can only be run on desktop!

Action on clicking on events and messages:

Change process count:

Difficulty

Ready to check your understanding?

Generation Parameters

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