Let me start from scratch as I'm realizing how difficult it is to understand my issue.
There is a Fact "A" with some rules use as conditions. "A" can be derived in several different but mutually exclusive ways. For the most part, the rules which define each of these derivations depend on states/conditions which the rules matching on "A" are largely agnostic of. rule "rule deriving A" when //some conditions then insert( new A(/*some values*/) ); end rule "another rule driving A" when //some other conditions then insert( new A(/*some other values*/) ); end // many other rules deriving A However, there are also other "parameters"/"values" needed for the computation of the many derivations of "A" (they need to be present in the RHSs of rules deriving "A"). The combination of these values are context-dependent to each matching of "A" /every time/. That is, each matching of "A" has a unique set of values binded to a particular set of parameters expected by rules deriving "A"). Rules deriving "A" need not and should not match on these parameters because they are different for every matching of "A"; the derivations should (ideally) take on whatever values are specified in the matching. rule "rule matching on A" when $a : A() // needs to somehow convey to the derivation of A() that it should use a set of values unique to this matching in its derivation then // use $a end rule "another rule matching on A" when $a : A() // needs to somehow convey to the derivation of A() that it should use a set of values unique to this matching in its derivation then // use $a end I cannot leave it up to the rules deriving "A" to handle every single case of different values for these parameters--there would be thousands of different combinations of derivations of "A" and nobody would understand the code. The rules deriving "A" cannot match on general "Parameter" objects because the values in the Parameter objects are unique for each matching of "A". This would mean that each rule matching "A" would need a counterpart rule which asserts the parameters/values needed by the rules deriving "A". I mean, I suppose this /is/ a solution, but it's obviously difficult to understand design. I guess what I'm looking for is something inbetween a function (with explicitly binded parameters) and a derivation that is rule based--to be able to say "derive this kind of object in any way that you can, but use these particular values in its derivation". Perhaps this is not possible. -- View this message in context: http://drools.46999.n3.nabble.com/Partial-Unification-Derivation-of-Facts-tp3372546p3372828.html Sent from the Drools: User forum mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ rules-users mailing list rules-users@lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/rules-users