Vocabulary elements
Whether a vocabulary element is a business term, a phrase, or a constant depends on the nature of its corresponding business element.
The drop-down lists of business rule editors show vocabulary elements.
If you change the default verbalization for a vocabulary element, avoid using parentheses ( ). These characters are considered as delimiters and can cause false difference, overlap, or gap warnings in decision tables.
Business term
A business term is a key concept handled in business rules. It is the verbalization of a class or nested class in the BOM.
For example, customer is
a business term.
Do
not use the characters “ and > in
term labels. They cause warnings and ambiguity problems when used
in rules.
Navigation phrase
A navigation phrase is a phrase that associates two business elements. It can be the verbalization of:
-
A method that has a non void return type
-
The getter part of an attribute
For example, {last name} of {this} is a
navigation phrase for the attribute Customer.lastName.
You can
also use predicate phrases in rules. A predicate phrase is a specific
type of navigation phrase that verbalizes a non void method that returns
a boolean or java.lang.Boolean.
A predicate phrase has an implicit subject. For example, {this}
is loyalty program member is a predicate phrase for the attribute Customer.loyaltyProgramMember.
Action phrase
An action phrase applies an action to an object. It can be the verbalization of:
-
A method that has a void return type
-
The setter part of an attribute
For example, in {this}, display the message {0} is
an action phrase for the method Session.displayMessage(String).
Constant
A
constant is the verbalization of the public static final attribute
of a class with the same type as this class. For example, Minivan is
a constant for the public static final attribute CarGroup.Minivan.
