Hi guys,

As you have probably noticed, today is my "decision tables day" :-).
Before telling you what is going wrong, let me show you what kind of rule I try to put in my Drools 5.1 decision table:

        # for each window
        $window : Window($elements : elements) from $windows
        # for each manual annotation
        $an1 : ManualAnnotation( this inside $window && text == "ToMatch")
        # if there is another manual annotation
        exists ManualAnnotation( this inside $window && text == "ToMatch2")
  
The only things I would like to parametrize are strings in bold.
My decision table looks like this:

CONDITION	CONDITION	CONDITION	CONDITION	CONDITION
	$an1 : ManualAnnotation		exists ManualAnnotation
$window : Window($elements...	this inside $window	text == "$1"	this inside $window	text == "$1"
for each window	annotation inside window	Text	annotation inside window	Text
N/A	N/A	ToMatch	N/A	ToMatch2
N/A	N/A	ToMatch3	N/A	ToMatch4

Here are the problems (in bold) with the generated rule:

        $an1 : ManualAnnotation( this inside $window == "N/A" && text == "ToMatch")
        exists ManualAnnotation( this inside $window == "N/A" && text == "ToMatch2")
        $window : Window($elements : elements) from $windows

• The order of the LHS "fact lines" of the generated rules is the not same as the order of appearance in the spreadsheet
• The "this inside $window" is considered as a field name

Do you know if I can solve those problems?
I have tried to find a way to tell the decision table to extend another rule but I haven't found a keyword for that in the documentation.

Maybe do I have to use rule templates?

Many thanks,
Best regards,

Bruno.