[Discuss-gnuradio] Empty work functions

[Nowlan, Sean]

The implementation of the uhd_control_port block in gnuradio-extras has an empty work function because it doesn't actually process any samples. I believe gnuradio-extras uses the gnuradio advanced scheduler (GRAS), so apparently GRAS doesn't mind blocks that don't have any connections in a flowgraph or do any work. Does the standard gnuradio scheduler also support this? I just want to know for reference if the gnuradio scheduler will keep or ignore a block with no connections, or empty io_signatures, or no code body in the work function.

What I want to do is change power using timed commands independent of the data path in the flowgraphs. I can do this one of two ways:
1) Make a block with a message queue and some logic to handle timing (to play nice with the timed commands implementation, which has a limited FIFO size and only a 10 second timeout window).
2) Launch a separate thread in Python that does the same thing as 1) but isn't a block. I assume this will be a lot easier.

--sean