ICM Issue Resolution Document  (IIRD)


IIRD ID:        4      
ISSUE TITLE:    Removal of Extraneous Argument for [End ICM Section] Keyword
REQUESTOR:      Kelly Green

DATE SUBMITTED: August 17, 2004
DATE REVISED:                        
DATE ACCEPTED BY IBIS OPEN FORUM: PENDING

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STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE:

      The keyword [End ICM Section] presently requires an argument that
      presumably matches the Section name given for the corresponding 
      [Begin ICM Section].

      No other keyword pairing requires that the corresponding End Keyword
      use any argument, much less a matching one.  Furthermore, no 
      example of the use of the [End ICM Secion] keyword has an argument,
      contradicting the definition of the keyword.

      Thus, there is a consistency issue with the present ICM specification.


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STATEMENT OF THE RESOLVED SPECIFICATIONS:

Current wording of the specification:


=============================================================================
     Keyword: [End ICM Section]
    Required: Yes
    Argument: Text String
     Used By: [Begin ICM Section]
 Description: Indicates the end of [Begin ICM Section].  This keyword is 
              after the [Derivation Method], [Resistance Matrix], 
              [Inductance Matrix], [Conductance Matrix], [Capacitance Matrix], 
              [Bandwidth], [Row], [ICM S-parameter].
 Usage Rules: Every [Begin ICM Section] keyword must have a corresponding
              [End ICM Section] keyword, which must be the last keyword of an 
              ICM Section description.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



Proposed wording of the specifaction:

=============================================================================
     Keyword: [End ICM Section]
    Required: Yes
|*  Argument: Text String (optional, deprecated)
     Used By: [Begin ICM Section]
 Description: Indicates the end of [Begin ICM Section].  This keyword is 
              after the [Derivation Method], [Resistance Matrix], 
              [Inductance Matrix], [Conductance Matrix], [Capacitance Matrix], 
              [Bandwidth], [Row], [ICM S-parameter].
 Usage Rules: Every [Begin ICM Section] keyword must have a corresponding
              [End ICM Section] keyword, which must be the last keyword of an 
              ICM Section description.

|*            Previous versions of the ICM specification required a text 
|*            string argument to this keyword, which matched the Section 
|*            Name given with the corresponding [Begin ICM Section] keyword.  
|*
|*            The [End ICM Section] argument is deprecated and it's use 
|*            discouraged; this keyword should appear alone and unadorned.
|*            The presence of an argument may not be compatible with a 
|*            future revision of the ICM specification.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[End ICM Section]


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ANALYSIS PATH/DATA THAT LED TO SPECIFICATION:



       It's likely that the presence of the argument was an error resulting
       form the incomplete removal of text describing it and it's intended
       use from early drafts of the ICM specification.

       The v1.0 golden parser inherited this oddity as well, since the 
       argument continued to be called out in the definition of the keyword,
       and the only reasonable value was a match with the [Begin ICM Section].

       The issue now is to reconcile the specification with it's examples,
       while retaining a measure of upward compatibility.

       To accomplish this, the proposal at hand is to make the usage 
       optional, while clearly discouraging it.


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ANY OTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION:


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