[rules-users] Another solution for: Detecting more than 3 occurrences within 1 hour

Hi, I'm working on thinking in Drools rules. Right now I'm trying to solve this: The rule shall fire if _a special event occurs more than 3 times within 1 hour_. My _first thought of a solution_ was to count the count the detected events using a counter. But the counter has to be a global variable, hasn't it? And global variables are not to be used to frequently, aren't they? And global variables must always be initialized from outside the rules file, don't they? Because of these thoughts I've looked for a _different solution without global variables_. I came up with: function boolean valueExceededLimit(Set<Alarms> alarmSet) { //.... } rule "more than 3 occurs within 1 hour" when // event #1 $eventA : Value( eval(parameterValueExceededLimit($eventA.getAlarms())) ) // event #2 $eventB : Value( this after[0ms,1h] $eventA && this != $eventA && eval(valueExceededLimit($eventB.getAlarms())) ) // event #3 $eventC : Value( this after[0ms,1h] $eventA && this != $eventA && this != $eventB && eval(valueExceededLimit($eventC.getAlarms())) ) // event #4 -> 4 > 3 $eventD : Value( this after[0ms,1h] $eventA && this != $eventA && this != $eventB && this != $eventC && eval(valueExceededLimit($eventD.getAlarms())) ) then // ... do something ... end More than 3 is kind of a doable task. But I think of this solution as heavy in case its needed to detect a larger number of events. I would be thankful for other approaches to the problem. Thanks :) Tina