Hi Everyone,
At the last ATM meeting of 2016 we were all asked to review BIRD 187.1.
I have two questions about its language.
Thanks,
Curtis
1. Page 4 of the BIRD. "Format" section:
Unless otherwise noted, Usage Out arguments or data of Type Value or
Default provided as Format are effectively ignored by EDA tools.
I think this sentence is a bit confusing. In particular, "Type" should not
be capitalized, right? I think we want to be careful to avoid confusion
with the AMI reserved word "Type" (Float, String, Integer, etc.), which we
don't mean here, right? We simply want to say that Value or Default are
generally ignored for an Output parameter.
2. Last sentence of that same paragraph of the "Format" section:
Data of Usage Dep, Usage Info or Usage Out shall not be passed to the
executable model file by the EDA tool, unlike data of Usage In or InOut,
which shall always be passed to the executable model file by the EDA tool.
I know that this sentence was added as a clarification statement, but it is
essentially a restatement of something that's already in the spec on page
202 (see below). I think restating something two different places in the
spec can cause maintenance issues later, and it may lead to confusion if
the reader wonders whether we are trying to draw a distinction between the
two different statements. In addition, the sentence itself is entirely
about Usage rules, so it seems out of place in the Format section anyway.
(page 202 of the spec): "The EDA tool shall pass a string to the
executable model through the AMI_parameters_in argument. This string shall
contain all of the leaf-formatted Usage In and Usage InOut AMI parameters
if there are any defined in the .ami file. No other information may be
included in this string. The string shall always include the root name of
the parameter tree, even if there are no parameters to pass to the
algorithmic model. The executable model shall return a string to the EDA
tool through the AMI_parameters_out argument. This string shall contain all
of the leaf formatted Usage InOut and Usage Out AMI parameters if there are
any defined in the AMI parameter definition file. No other information may
be included in this string."
