Self-stabilizing census with cut-through constraint

We present a distributed census algorithm for unidirectional rings subject to transient faults. This algorithm is written using the efficient cut-through routing scheme, where the messages must be forwarded to a neighbor before they are completely received. The distributed census problem can be informally described as follows: the nodes cooperate to reach a global configuration where every node can determine, within finite time, which nodes are and which nodes are not present in the network. The fault tolerance is achieved using Dijkstra's paradigm of self-stabilization. A self-stabilizing algorithm, regardless of the initial system configuration, converges in finite time to a set of legitimate configurations.