dbo:abstract
- Control tables are tables that control the control flow or play a major part in program control. There are no rigid rules about the structure or content of a control table—its qualifying attribute is its ability to direct control flow in some way through "execution" by a processor or interpreter. The design of such tables is sometimes referred to as table-driven design (although this typically refers to generating code automatically from external tables rather than direct run-time tables). In some cases, control tables can be specific implementations of finite-state-machine-based automata-based programming. If there are several hierarchical levels of control table they may behave in a manner equivalent to UML state machines Control tables often have the equivalent of conditional expressions or function references embedded in them, usually implied by their relative column position in the association list. Control tables reduce the need for programming similar structures or program statements over and over again. The two-dimensional nature of most tables makes them easier to view and update than the one-dimensional nature of program code. In some cases, non-programmers can be assigned to maintain the content of control tables. For example, if a user-entered search phrase contains a certain phrase, a URL (web address) can be assigned in a table that controls where the search user is taken. If the phrase contains "skirt", then the table can route the user to "www.shopping.example/catalogs/skirts", which is the skirts product catalog page. (The example URL doesn't work in practice). Marketing personnel may manage such a table instead of programmers. (en)
- 控制表是一個決定控制流程或是主要影響控制流程的表。關於控制表的結構或內容沒有硬性的規定，其特點是其可以影響控制流程的能力。這類表格的設計有時稱為「表格驅動設計」（不過後者多半是指由外部的表格自動生成程式碼，而不是在程式中的表格）。以有限狀態機為基礎的自动机编程有時會用控制表為其實現方式。若控制表有幾個不同的層次，其行為就類似。 控制表有時會以的方式表示，其中會有對應的條件表示式及子程序。控制表可以簡化一些類似的程式敘述，而且若是二維的控制表，在閱讀及更新上都比一維特性的程式碼要容易維護，有時控制表甚至可以讓非程式設計師來維護。電腦科學家高德納在1974年提出的論文《Structured Programming with go to Statements》中就提到「多路分支是一種重要的程式設計技術，但常常被一些數量不足的if指令取代」。 (zh)