Method and apparatus for managing control messages in a communication system

Abstract

The present invention provides an auto-cancelling buffer and method that ensures that time sensitive control messages such as congestion alarms and recovery messages are efficiently moved between control processes. In a general embodiment, one or more time sensitive control messages are stored in a special buffer. A current control message indicating a first state is compared with a previously buffered control message. If the buffered control message is in a second different state, e.g., opposite the first state, the buffered control message is removed from the buffer, and both messages are discarded. In effect, opposing control messages are cancelled rather than both stored in the buffer. This avoids unnecessary cycling of an end process which acts on control messages forwarded from the buffer. For example, if the control messages include congestion alarm messages and congestion recovery messages, one of the congestion alarm and recovery messages previously stored in the buffer is automatically cancelled when the other message is received. If the compared messages have the same states, only one is stored in the buffer.