Semi-automatic mode
By default, in the interactive console and GUI input modes, the user is asked to choose, even if for instance there is only one possible transition. Having to choose for every transition can become tiresome. To reduce the number of situations where input is required, the semi-automatic mode is available. Semi-automatic mode allows the simulator to automatically choose certain transitions, while leaving the remaining choices for the user. The following choices can be automatically made by the simulator, in semi-automatic mode:
-
Automatically choose a transition if there is only one transition possible.
-
Automatically choose time transitions, regardless of how many transitions are possible.
-
Automatically choose the delay duration of time transitions.
-
Automatically choose event transitions (for certain events), regardless of how many transitions are possible.
Each of these possible automatic choices can be individually enabled, through the Interactive mode automatic transition choice option (Input category). As value for the option, comma separated filters should be supplied. The following filters are available:
-
1to automatically choose a transition if there is only one transition possible. -
timeto automatically choose time transitions. -
timedurto automatically choose the delay duration of time transitions. -
The name of an event, to automatically choose event transitions for that event.
-
urgentto automatically choose event transitions for all urgent events.
For events, the absolute names of the events are used. That is, for an automaton a, with an event e, the absolute name of the event is a.e. If CIF textual syntax keyword are used as names for events (such as plant), then they must be escaped in .cif files ($plant). For filters however, all escape characters ($) in event names are ignored. The * character can be used as wildcard, to indicate zero or more characters. The special urgent event filter matches all urgent events of the specification. If an event filter doesn’t match any of the events of the CIF model, a warning is printed to the console. If a filter doesn’t have any effect, because a previous filter already turned ensured that the matching events into are automatically chosen, a warning is printed as well.
As an example, option value 1, g*, t* consist of three filters: 1, g*, and t*. The first filter indicates that the simulator should automatically choose a transition if there is only one transition possible. The second and third filters indicate that the simulator should also automatically choose all events starting with an g or a t, such as g, g1, go, etc. Note that the wildcards apply only to events, so t* does not mean that time transitions should be automatically chosen. The t* filter always matches the tau event, as that event is implicitly always present.
If an automatic choice can be made, given the filter and the possible transitions, the transitions are filtered to only keep the ones that can be chosen automatically, and they are sent to the automatic input component, which then makes the actual choice, depending on its own configuration. Similarly, if the delay duration of a time transition is to be automatically chosen, the automatic input component is asked to choose, based on its own configuration.