Naming Convention for Object/Instance Data
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Please note: In the Shlaer-Mellor parlance,
an "Object" is loosely equivalent to a
C++ "Class", so please be aware of the
possible ambiguities when discussing this
with people who are not Shlaer-Mellored.

In general there are two categories of data,
class-based data and instance-based data.

Class-based data is data that is declared
as "static" data members in the C++ class
declaration. There is only one copy of this
data for all of the instances of the class.

An example of Class-based data is the Finite
State Machine for the Class. There is only one
copy of this data for the whole class.

Instance based data is data that exists for
each instance of a class. For example, for
each instance of an Active Object, there is
a "Current_State" attribute.

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Each OOA Object has a number (N) of attributes.

<Domain/Subsystem_KeyLetters>_<Object_Name>.<attribute_name>

For instance-based data the naming convention is:

<Domain/Subsystem_KeyLetters>_<Object_Name>-<Instance_Number>.<Attribute_Name>

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Proposal:

Use non-case-sensitive processing. That is,
all strings are folded to upper case for 
comparison purposes.

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Examples:

Domain: Physical System Simulation
Subsystem: Locomotion
Domain/Subsystem Key Letters: PSSL        <unique to Domain/Subsystem>
OOA Object: WHEEL
Instance_Number: 1
Attribute_Name: DIAMETER
Attribute_Type: FLOAT


The "variable name" for this instance would be:

"PSSL_WHEEL-1.DIAMETER"

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File Structure:

A "database" definition file for the data that
will be stored by a simulation module might be
defined using the following pattern:


<Object_Name>.<Attribute_Name>,<Data_Type>,<Access_Mode>

Or

<Object_Name>-<Instance_Number>.<Attribute_Name>,<Data_Type>,<Access_Mode>

where
 
<Data_Type> ::= (FLOAT | INT | ???) --> what are the TCA allowable types?
<Access_Mode> ::= (RR | RW)

This expands to the following: