METHOD FOR PROVIDING A TABLE OF STATION-SPECIFIC INFORMATION IN A NETWORK OF DISTRIBUTED STATIONS, AND NETWORK STATION FOR CARRYING OUT THE METHOD

摘要

After every bus reset operation in an IEEE 1394 network, the network is reconfigured. This involves a table (28) with further station-specific information being created after the bus initialization phase, the tree structure identification phase and the self identification phase. This is done by making requests to the individual network stations. Each network station returns its station-specific information to the requesting network station. It has become apparent that in some cases a response from the network station to which a request has been sent is returned only after the request has been repeated a plurality of times or in the extreme case even not at all. So as not to delay the creation of the network node information table (28) unnecessarily for such cases, the invention proposes creating the table (28) in two phases (F1, F2). In the first phase (F1), all that information which has been received up to a time determined by a first abort criterion is sorted into the table (28). Next, the still incomplete table (28) is enabled for use by an application program in the requesting network station. In the second phase (F2), the still missing station- specific information is then requested again and is sorted into the table when it is delivered by the stations to which requests have been sent. After a time determined by a second abort criterion, the further request for the still missing station-specific information is terminated and the table is closed in this state and is provided for use by the application software.