Decision Table Editor

Decision Table Sheets describe the dynamic behavior of (part of) a Flow Diagram in matrix form.

There are three forms of the Decision Table:

Input & Output

Input & Process

Input, Process & Output

As shown above the table can be composed of an input block, an output block and a process block. An example of a Decision Table is given at the end of this help text.

You can change the names of the blocks by clicking on the name and editing the text.

Contents of headers

The header of the input block should contain all Control Flows which enter the sheet (Decision Table).

The header of the process block can only contain the names of processes (nodes) in the corresponding Flow Diagram.

The header of the output block should contain all Control Flows which leave the sheet.

Note that the Flows which enter and leave this sheet do not have to be the same as those which enter and leave the full Control Specification (bar). This is because Control Flows can also flow between sheets. For example, a Control Flow could leave this Decision Table sheet and flow into a State Transition Diagram sheet. Flow balancing is checked by the analyzer.

If you rename a Flow or Node (using the Rename command from a selector) that is referenced in the Decision Table, then it is also renamed in the Decision Table.

Contents of cells

The cells in the Input and/or Output blocks can only contain 0 (event has not occurred) or 1 (event has occurred). The analyzer checks that the cells contain valid values.

The cells in the Process block show process activation. The valid values are:

0 deactivate process

1,2,3,... activate process

1s,2s,3s,... start process

If you want to activate the processes in an arbitrary order you can give them all a value of 1. If the sequence of the activation is important you can specify this using a sequence of values.

Similarly if you want to start processes in a specific order. Starting processes is only relevant if you are using the ShortCut prototyping tool. For details see the "ShortCut User's Reference Guide".

Furthermore each cell can contain any number of comments which can be placed before and after the actual cell content. Each individual comment has to be surrounded by '*' characters.

Size of matrix

The default matrix is Input, Process & Output with 2 columns for each block, the header line and then three rows.

You can increase the size of the matrix if you need more columns (for your Control Flows or Nodes) or more rows (for your values). To do this use the commands from the Cell popup menu. In addition you can change the size of the rows and columns themselves using the "Size" and "Default Size" commands from the Options menu.

The Decision Table editor contains the following pull-down menus:

File

Edit

View

Draw

Options

Popup Menu

There are also one popup menu available within the Decision Table editor. The menu appears when you are pointing to a cell.