Re: More than 99 indicators needed

Hi, Mel
Using your example, if condition (7) is true -- that is, *IN01, *IN02, and *IN03 are all on -- then I cannot also have any of conditions (0) through (6) true. (7) is mutually exclusive with the other conditions (they are no longer independent of other true conditions). So I've used 3 indicators to represent one true condition. But I started with 3 indicators that could represent 3 independent conditions (X), (Y), and (Z).
If we replace (0) through (7) with eight fields to be printed on one output operation, I can only do one of them. There are 8 possible combinations, but one precludes all of the others. In the case of your binary bits, they can be used to represent 0 - 7, but can only represent one of those values at one point in time.
Bruce

Mel Rothman <mel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bruce,

Perhaps I have misunderstood your premise, so please correct me if that is the case.

Anyway, it seems that 3 indicators can be used to define 8 independent conditions just as 3 binary bits can represent the values 0 through 7.

For example:

N01N02N03 (0)
N01N02 03 (1)
N01 02N03 (2)
N01 02 03 (3)
01N02N03 (4)
01N02 03 (5)
01 02N03 (6)
01 02 03 (7)

A total of 784 unique combinations can be made, for example, by using indicators 01 and 02 in the first two positions and using, in turn, indicators 3 through 99 in the third position.


Mel Rothman




Bruce Vining wrote:

Agreed and further I "don't think", rather I will guarantee that you can't take an arbitrary number of independent indicators N (for arguments sake lets say N = 99) which can represent N (99) INDEPENDENT conditions and by Anding and/or Oring these indicators get a number of independent conditions that is greater than N. In fact every time you And/Or indicators you are REDUCING the number of independent conditions that can be represented. You can, with Anding/Oring get a huge number of combinations, but these combinations also have a huge number of dependencies (which, going back to the original question, will cause fields tho either print or not print when you desire the opposite result).

Bruce

Barbara Morris wrote:
Tom Liotta wrote:

I guess that the point I'm making is that _any_ subsequent developer better be very clear on what is going on with this.

And as Bruce Vining pointed out, it doesn't work anyway. I don't think there's any way to use 99 indicators to represent any _combination_ of 100 truth values. Using the double-indicator scheme would work if you only wanted to print out one field, but if you want to print out more than one, it's not possible to set on an arbitrary combination of the double-indicators without accidentally setting on additional double-indicators. Setting the double indicators 0147 and 0254 also sets on 0154 and 0247.