A decision table represents an input-output relationship as a table listing combinations of input variables and their corresponding outputs (sometiimes a boolean yes/no value). An exhaustive lsist such as this is only useful for relatively simple decsions with a small nunber of variables and alternatives, but can be a lot clear as replacement for, or alongside more rule-based or algorithmic knowledge representations.
A simple decision table to determie the kind of animal based on colour and size:
| INPUT | OUPUT | |
|---|---|---|
| colour | size | animal |
| grey | large | elephant |
| grey | small | mouse |
| blue | large | whale |
| blue | small | butterfly |
| pink | large | pink elephant |
| ... | ... | ... |
Used on Chap. 5: page 107