Working with Lists

DecisionPro's list processing and matrix math abilities are ideal for performing statistical analyses because they make it easy to manage large amounts of data. Tree nodes can contain literally thousands of data points. Whether a node contains a single value or a large set of data, you always reference the node in the same manner. For example, if you want to add 10 to the value in a node named Data, you can use a simple formula like the following:

If you want to add 10 to every element in a database named Data, you can use exactly the same formula:

Similarly, you can perform statistical calculations and apply functions to data sets by referencing the data as a single entity.

Using list-processing abilities in this manner makes it unnecessary to replicate nodes as you would with a spreadsheet. Having only one occurrence of each node makes your models less likely to contain errors that go unnoticed. Moreover, changes are easier to make, models are easier to understand, and models will automatically adapt when the sizes of your data sets change.

For more information about constructing and using lists, refer to Lists and Matrices in the Modeling Language Basics chapter, page 60.