When you add a stage, you specify its properties (name), and the action(s) associated with this stage. In other words, when the machine that sends the message comes to this stage during this process, it will execute the action that you will define for that stage. Each action has properties that the user will have to define; these are explained in sub-section Building the Physical Layer's connection diagram below.
| • | No Action - Execution is being transferred to the target stage without performing any additional tasks. |
| • | Send CCXML - Sends the data in the given buffer in the CCXML format (should the data already be stored as CCXML, it is being sent as is, should it be stored as a raw protocol, it will first be converted to CCXML and then transmitted seamlessly). |
| • | Receive CCXML - The format of the received data is being checked. Should the format be CCXML, the received data shall then be stored in a respective buffer and the flow will be transferred to the target stage. Should the data format not match, no action will be taken. |
| • | Send Content - Sends the data in the given buffer in its raw protocol format (should the data already be stored as raw, it is being sent as is, should it be stored as a CCXML document, it will first be converted to raw format and then transmitted seamlessly). |
| • | Receive Content - The format of the received data is being checked. Should the format be raw content, the received data shall then be stored in a respective buffer and the flow will be transferred to the target stage. Should the data format not match, no action will be taken. |
| • | Send Control Character - Sends the control character specified in the action's settings and transfers the flow to the target stage. For more explanation about Control Characters, see the next procedure. |
| • | Receive Control Char - Once the data is received, it will be verified against the pre-defined control character (which can either be a single-byte character or a multi-byte sequence). Should there be a match, the flow will then be transferred to the target stage. Should there not be a match, nothing will be performed by that particular action (that is not to say that there cannot be other actions which are attached to the same parent stage, which might match, and will be subsequently tested). |
| • | Send Control Message - The behavior of this command is identical to the Send Content command; however, the message to be sent is a constant one, and is to be specified by the user from the message library. This serves a purpose where the instrument works with control messages of specific formats, instead of mere control characters. |
| • | Receive Control Message - The behavior of this command is identical to the Receive Content command; however, the received content is verified against a specific message branch. The progression of the state is dependent on the result of the former check. The received content can be either written to the message buffer or ignored, depending on the specified Buffer Name. A 'Null' buffer name will cause the message to be discarded; any other name will place the message into a buffer with its respective name. |
| • | Buffer Empty - Will be executed when the specified buffer is determined to contain no data. |
| • | Custom - At this stage, this action type is redundant. There is no difference between it and the No action type at this point. |