Technical Guide

This document guides through the structure of the random_events package and explains how it works.

The package is a python wrapper around a C++ library working in the same way, hence the technical documentation here also applies to the C++ backend.

The most important classes are the AbstractSimpleSet and AbstractCompositeSet classes.

You can open the C++ project by using CLion. For this you need the bazel plugin for CLion and import the submodule in src/random-events-lib. Next, open the existing bazel file and continue the process from there. This gets you set up to run the C++ tests.

New Algebras

Algebraic structures are the main concern of this package. When you want to add a new algebra, you need to create a new class that inherits from AbstractSimpleSet and AbstractCompositeSet.

SimpleInterval and Interval provide an easy to grasp example of such an implementation.

New Variables

Describing a multidimensional algebra needs variables that describe the type of dimensions. In more applied scenarios, it may happen that more information is needed to describe a variable. Achieving this requires the creation of a new class that inherits from the respective variable.

Serialization

The SubClassJSONSerializer is a class that automatically serializes and deserializes subclasses of a said class. I strongly recommended getting familiar with this class when adding new classes to the package.

Association over Inheritance

Always be aware that inheritance is defined as

What is wanted here is something like the following substitution property: If for each object o1 of type S there is an object o2 of type T such that for all programs P defined in terms of T, the behavior of P is unchanged when o1 is substituted for o2 then S is a subtype of T.

So if you are thinking of extending the algebra or variables, be very sure that what you want is really inheritance and not association.