Variable Name Conflicts

[jolanglinais]

Bug Report 🐛

In some cases, editing one variable within web-components will edit another variable making it impossible to distinguish them

Expected Behavior

Update to a variable should be propagated to the same variable in other places in the document, but not to different variables

Current Behavior

Example with the copyright license template:

Both licensor and licensee variables have type AccordParty which seems to confuse the algorithm responsible for propagating variable changes. TemplateMark holds on to the licensee and licensor variables, but those are expanded (since they are complex types) before generating the CiceroMark.

CiceroMark, TemplateMark, and Model

Model

asset CopyrightLicenseContract extends AccordContract {
  /* the effective date */
  o DateTime effectiveDate

  /* licensee */
  o AccordParty licensee
  o String licenseeState
  o String licenseeEntityType
  o String licenseeAddress

  /* licensor */
  o AccordParty licensor
  o String licensorState
  o String licensorEntityType
  o String licensorAddress
...

CiceroMark

        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.ciceromark.Variable",
          "value": ""Me"",
          "name": "partyId",
          "elementType": "String"
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
          "text": " ("Licensee"), a "
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.ciceromark.Variable",
          "value": ""NY"",
          "name": "licenseeState",
          "elementType": "String"
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
          "text": " "
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.ciceromark.Variable",
          "value": ""Company"",
          "name": "licenseeEntityType",
          "elementType": "String"
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
          "text": " with offices located at "
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.ciceromark.Variable",
          "value": ""1 Broadway"",
          "name": "licenseeAddress",
          "elementType": "String"
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
          "text": ", and "
        }, 
        {
          "$class": "org.accordproject.ciceromark.Variable",
          "value": ""Myself"",
          "name": "partyId",
          "elementType": "String"
        }, 

TemplateMark

            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.templatemark.VariableDefinition",
              "name": "licensee",
              "elementType": "org.accordproject.cicero.contract.AccordParty"
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
              "text": " ("Licensee"), a "
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.templatemark.VariableDefinition",
              "name": "licenseeState",
              "elementType": "String"
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
              "text": " "
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.templatemark.VariableDefinition",
              "name": "licenseeEntityType",
              "elementType": "String"
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
              "text": " with offices located at "
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.templatemark.VariableDefinition",
              "name": "licenseeAddress",
              "elementType": "String"
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.commonmark.Text",
              "text": ", and "
            }, 
            {
              "$class": "org.accordproject.templatemark.VariableDefinition",
              "name": "licensor",
              "elementType": "org.accordproject.cicero.contract.AccordParty"
            }, 

Possible Solution

We need to distinguish between the name of the field to be updated when editing, and the name of the variable in the model (field name in the owning type). For complex types, those are two different things.

Perhaps we should set elementType in the CiceroMark for this example to AccordParty and the name should be licensee -- it is then up to the editor/transformation to decide on the best way to edit or render the complex type (e.g. we could use a popup with Concerto form for some complex types). In the default case that means editing or rendering the identifier (String).

We will need to distinguish between --> AccordParty and AccordParty because we would use different editors for those.

However, the variable partyId is of type String. This could make pop ups difficult to handle. Also, how would that work when a type has multiple variables (e.g., an Address)?

The bottom line is that you need more context (how did you get to that one variable).

Context

Please see https://github.com/accordproject/web-components/issues/197 for complete context

[jolanglinais]

@jeromesimeon and @dselman can provide more context on this Issue.

[jeromesimeon]

@jeromesimeon and @dselman can provide more context on this Issue.

I want to bounce this back to web-components 😛

[jolanglinais]

I would like to refer you to your own comment here https://github.com/accordproject/web-components/issues/197#issuecomment-694903715 😛