Hi,

I'm adding support for "otherwise" to (for the time being) the guided decision table in Guvnor.

The idea being if you set a cell to represent "otherwise" the generated rule is the opposite of the accumulation of the other cells; perhaps best explained with an example:-

Person( name == )
Mark
Kris
Geoffrey
<otherwise>

This would generate:-

Person(name not in ("Mark", "Kris", "Geoffrey")

Equals is the simple example, this is my thoughts for the other operators we might like to support:-

!= becomes "in (<list of the other cells' values)"
< becomes ">= the maximum value of the other cells' values

For example:-

Person ( age < )
10
20
30
<otherwise>

Person ( age >= 30 )

<= becomes "> the maximum value of the other cells' values
> becomes "<= the minimum value of the other cells' values
>= becomes "< the minimum value of the other cells' values
"in" becomes "not in (<a list of all values contained in all the other cells' lists of values>)"

For example:-

Person ( name in )
Jim, Jack
Lisa, Jane, Paul
<otherwise>

Person ( name not in ("Jim", "Jack", "Lisa", "Jane", "Paul" ) )

I'm not sure there is a simple solution for "matches" and "soundslike" but welcome advice, although a possibility might be to create a compound field constraint:-

Person ( name soundslike )
Fred
Phil

not Person ( name soundslike "Fred" || soundslike "Phil" )

Would this be considered the most suitable approach?

Inputs and thoughts welcome.

Thanks,

Mike