Default Rule and Other Uses of Implicit States

The default rule (item type *) is applied to all item types not specified in other rules. These default types may be associated with several different item lifecycles, and therefore no specific lifecycle state may be used in the default rule, but instead one of the above implicit states must be chosen. Therein lies the value of such titles as *FINAL, *LATEST and *HIGHEST, as they can be re-interpreted according to the different lifecycles associated with the types of item to be selected by the default rule.

The default rule is just a short alternative to specifying a separate rule (with the same implicit state in each) for every item type used by all the relevant items, except for the item types which have rules to themselves.

The implicit states can be useful in other rules besides the default rule. For example, if a template is to select items of several different types, and for each of them to pick the latest revision at the final normal lifecycle state, it may be more convenient (and clearer) to choose *FINAL for the rule for each of these item types, rather than look up and select the name of the actual final normal state in each case. The template would function equally effectively, specified either way.

A further advantage of implicit states can be in defining general-purpose templates, for use by several different products. For example, several products may have items of type XYZ, but in each product a different lifecycle is specified for that item type. Any of these products could use a template consisting of the single rule XYZ *LATEST to create a baseline which included the latest revision (at any normal lifecycle state) of each relevant item of type XYZ.

Related Topics

Rules Using Implicit States

Using *BUILT and *MADE OF Implicit States