Talk:Notice time

raphael 22:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC): Here I have a question about the meaning of OPERAT in the context of notice time. "Whichever is more" and "whichever is less" are OK where they apply. But NTCTXT is also intended to qualify NTCHRS, e.g., by adding a phrase like "before reaching reporting point". "3 hours before reaching reporting point" would be encoded as NTCHRS = 3 hours and NTCTXT="before reaching reporting point". Possible ways to resolve this are by mandating a meaning for OPERAT=null or the absence of OPERAT, or adding another allowed value for OPERAT.

jens 06:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC) Does not multiplicity 0..1 solve the problem? Having no OPERAT defined the operation is absence.
By the way, reading your argument it seem to me that the sequential should be set. Otherwise we run the risk to see "before reaching reporting point 3 hours" which is understandable but looks strange. I will set the sequential accordingly.

raphael 18:58, 28 October 2009 (UTC): OPERAT multiplicity 0.. does solve the problem, the specification should state how the absence of OPERAT must be interpreted. E.g., "The absence of OPERAT or a null value for OPERAT means NTCTXT qualifies or explains NTCTIM. In this case NTCHRS and NTCTXT must be read or displayed together."

The definition of "sequential" in S-100 drafts is ambiguous, but after reading the remarks in V. 0.0.4 2a-4.2.13 and examples in Appendix 2A, "sequential" is just a boolean which applies only if multiplicities > 1 are allowed; all "sequential" indicates is whether the sequence of values is significant. It is left to the product specification to say what the significance is.

I see the point about specifying the order of NTCHRS and NTCTXT, but perhaps the data capture (encoding) guide should tell the encoder how to phrase NTCTXT? If I were displaying NTCTHRS/NTCXT as a table either order might be acceptable. Also, it is possible that the proper order might be different in different languages.