Several changes have been introduced to make state control dependencies easier to understand for both novice and experienced Analysts of eXpress. Most significantly, by default, newly created object states now have no state control dependencies. In previous versions of the software, all of an object’s control ports were automatically listed as control dependencies of any states created on that object. If you did not carefully review and update these default lists, you could easily create diagnostics in which a failed test indicts functions that do not appear (at first glance) to be related to that test. In many cases, to activate an object state, a command must be sent to the object. This situation can be modeled using control dependencies. Each of an object's states has its own list of state control dependencies. A state control dependency is the port on the object through which state control commands may arrive. During diagnostics, control dependencies will be considered to be additional potential sources of failure, should a test fail that requires the state to be active.
By default, all of the object's control ports are assumed to be control dependencies of every state defined on that object. However, any input, control or bidirectional port is allowed to be specified as a source of state control. Because the control dependencies represent an addition type of dependency, it is acceptable to have control ports that are not dependencies of any port, but only appear as dependencies of states. By default, control ports appear as dependencies of both states and output functions. The automatic population of a state's control dependencies list can be turned off by disabling the "Auto" checkbox that appears above the list.When the "Auto" mode is disabled, two icons will appear to the right of the checkbox allowing the Analyst to add (using the "plus" icon) or remove (using the "minus" icon) ports from the state's control dependencies list.
On the States panel, click on the name of the object state whose control dependencies are to be changed.
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If it is enabled, disable the "Auto" checkbox above the "Control Deps" list on the States panel.
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To add state control dependencies, click on the icon depicting a plus sign that appears above the "Control Deps" list. The "Add State Control Dependencies" dialog will appear. Highlight the port(s) to be added to the "Control Deps" list and then click on the "OK" button.
To remove control dependencies, highlight the port(s) to be removed in the control dependencies list and click on the icon depicting a minus sign that appears above the list.
