Using punctuation to clarify rules

Use commas or parentheses to avoid building rules that would otherwise have multiple interpretations.

Ambiguities occur when part of a rule has at least two interpretations that are semantically correct, or when there are two identical terms or phrases in the vocabulary.

For example, the following statement is ambiguous:

if
all of the following conditions are true :
   - the category of the customer is Gold 
   - the age of the customer is at most 15
and 
   the salary of the customer is more than 100

Rule Designer raises an ambiguity error (which appears in green Consistency error icon ) because it cannot tell whether the salary of the customer is more than 100 is associated with the age of the customer is at most 15, or whether it is the third condition of the rule.

To remove the ambiguity, you can add a comma at the end of the the age of the customer is at most 15 condition statement:

if
all of the following conditions are true : 		
   - the category of the customer is Gold 		
   - the age of the customer is at most 15,
and
   the salary of the customer is more than 100

An alternative way to remove ambiguity is to use parentheses to group expressions.

In cases where there are two identical terms or phrases in the vocabulary, change one of the terms or phrases to remove the ambiguity.