Unused selects in SHTOLO

[Phil Spiby]

Folks,

If we are going to remove unused selects from the long form, then there must
be a reason for this. The same reason should be applied to other aspects of
the long form schema also, such as other types, functions procedures and
constants.

If we are going to apply this then we should apply it consistently and
either make the removal mandatory for all of these aspects or not apply it
at all. Adding a switch to annex G just gives us another conformance issue,
adding two switches (one for selects and a second for other things) gives us
four conformance issues. Each of these would have to be tested for validated
parsers!

I would prefer to see all un-used information removed from the longform
schema, since it is only used for implementation and not as the basis of
further modelling I don't see a need for including definitions which would
not be used by a valid population (since no valid population can cause these
aspects to be used!).

Phil

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Günter Staub [mailto:staub at pdtec.de] 
> Sent: 13 October 2003 10:02
> To: 'Rob Bodington'
> Cc: expressIF at tc184-sc4.org; wg11 at steptools.com
> Subject: RE: Unused selects in SHTOLO
> 
> 
> Rob,
> 
> some time ago I proposed this behaviour, but there was some 
> objections against it (but I do not remember when and from 
> whom). I do not have a real problem to provide a switch for 
> allowing to prune unused types, but in this case the 
> possibility should be mentioned (as a
> note?) somewhere in the Annex of the EXPRESS LRM (either as a 
> last step in the longform generation or during the 
> EXPRESS:1994 transformation).
> 
> Question: what about other unused types, unused functions, 
> constants, etc. which do not result from the long form 
> generation? We need a very clear answer here also.
> 
> 
> Rgds,
> Gunter
> 
> PDTec GmbH ------------------------------------------
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> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rob Bodington [mailto:rob.bodington at eurostep.com] 
> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 9:53 AM
> To: expressIF at tc184-sc4.org; wg11 at steptools.com
> Subject: Unused selects in SHTOLO
> 
> Hi
> 
> Most extensible selects in the modules are used for the 
> following template.
> 
> You have a base extensible select that is referenced by a 
> single attribute in some relationship entity. This select is 
> then extended with entities in the relationship whenever the 
> module is reused. These extended selects are not really used 
> other than to create a population for the base select. i.e. 
> there are no attributes with the select as the corresponding types.
> 
> For example.
> 
> TYPE approval_item = EXTENSIBLE GENERIC_ENTITY SELECT; END_TYPE; 
> 
> ENTITY Approval;
>   status : Approval_status;
>   purpose : STRING;
>   planned_date : OPTIONAL date_or_date_time_select;
>   actual_date : OPTIONAL date_or_date_time_select;
> END_ENTITY;
> 
> The approval_item is then extended in a number of modules. E.g.
> 
> TYPE ap239_mri_approval_item = EXTENSIBLE GENERIC_ENTITY 
> SELECT BASED_ON approval_item WITH 
>    (Contract_assignment, 
>     Event, 
>     Event_assignment, 
>     Identification_assignment, 
>     Project, 
>     Project_assignment);
> END_TYPE;
> 
> ap239_mri_approval_item is not really used anywhere - it 
> simply there to provide a population of approval_item.
> 
> The consequence of this is that a resulting long form has a 
> number of selects that are not really used at all - they are 
> a side affect of the process of populating the base select.
> 
> Consequently I was thinking that it would be a good idea if 
> the tools provide the option to the e2 to e1 SHTOLO to prune 
> any extended select that is not used by any attribute or other select.
> 
> What does everyone think?
> 
> Regards
> Rob
> 
> -------------------------------------------
> Rob Bodington
> Eurostep Limited
> Web Page:   http://www.eurostep.com http://www.share-a-space.com
> Email:  Rob.Bodington at eurostep.com
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> 
> 
> 
> 
>