4.2.6.2 Message Reduction

One concern of the Diagnosis rules is that of reducing the number of diagnostic messages. The same defect can potentially account for a number of checks in the checklist. For example, a rib may be absolutely unacceptably thick. There are two rules to address rib thickness, one which looks for marginally unacceptable thickness and another which looks for absolutely unacceptable thickness. As a result, the rib's checklist would include two checks for the two rules due to the same flaw.

The Diagnosis_Rib_Thick rule below takes into account that an unacceptably- thick-rib-message might already have been generated. Basically, the rule states that if the x_unac_thck check is not marked but the x_thck check mark is, then it is alright to indicate that there is a thickness problem. On the other hand, had the x_unac_thck check been known, no diagnosis would have been created due to this rule. Generation of a diagnostic message would have been left to the Diagnosis_Rib_Unacceptably_Thick rule.