[rules-users] Equality semantics of logical assertions and stated assertions

I understand that logical insertions in Drools does not insert two facts that are equal according to their #equals implementation (and associated #hashCode logic). I'm basing this off of my own investigation plus the (well written) documentation @ http://docs.jboss.org/drools/release/5.2.0.Final/drools-expert-docs/html/.... However, normal/stated fact assertions only use identity-based equality checks - by default. It looks like this can be changed to value-based equality via RuleBaseConfiguration. I have found some related, old Jiras: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBRULES-266 https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBRULES-233 In both cases, Mark Proctor had a final remark, but I wasn't able to understand what was really decided and why. One specific comment @ https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBRULES-266 is, "logical assertions are always equality based. Stated facts can now use identity and equality - using your configuration settings. I have added another configuration setting to dictate how logical over-ride works. Does it discard the original fact, or turn it into two stated fact handles." What is the reasoning behind only using the value-based equality for logical assertions? Why is it not configurable as stated fact assertions are? Also, why is the default behavior of stated fact assertion to be identity-based equality? - I find the inconsistency between the default for normal assertions and the (only option) for logical assertion to be a bit confusing/inconsistent. I'm just looking for an understanding the motivation behind these design decisions. I have had a lot of performance issues using, primarily, logical assertions due to the "no duplicate" checking being done. Even the stated assertions do still come with a cost of creating the initial FactHandle. With deeply nested/complex domain objects, the #equals and #hashCode implementations may be quite expensive when executed many times throughout rule execution. This is especially prominent in accumulators that may later accumulate these objects into collections that then are also subject to this equals/hashCode "penalty". I have a related post a while back @ http://drools.46999.n3.nabble.com/Object-size-impact-on-session-insertion.... I do not believe it is typical to use complex domain model objects as the keys to something like a HashMap. One reason (there are more; especially for mutable objects) would be due to the performance around having them be hashed and equality checked regularly when the map is accessed, modified, etc. The creation of many FactHandle's has shown up in some of my profiling performance problems due to this the constructor immediately hashing my domain model objects. I think the reason the fact handles use this information is for value-based equality comparisons - such as the only method used by the Truth Maintenance System logical assertions. I would really appreciate more insight into the motivation for not allowing #equals facts to be logically asserted separately into working memory - especially since there is a price to pay for the behavior in my case. -- View this message in context: http://drools.46999.n3.nabble.com/Equality-semantics-of-logical-assertion... Sent from the Drools: User forum mailing list archive at Nabble.com.