Sub Instance Wildcarding

[Kevin Hawkins]

A point Ian made got me thinking..

In my xAP C-Bus application I utilise all 256 UID's - actually I
forsake using 00 and FF as they are reserved in xAPland. If there were
several interconnected C-Bus networks I need 254*#networks. This is another
reason why I favour individual status reports as I can't fit all mine in
one
message so we would need a xAP continuation mechanism :-( 1500/256= 5
characters per load which is not enough.

If my sub addresses are not named by the end user then I use the
numbers 01-FE actually with a G before them to mean 'Group' which is a
C-Bus
term. So my source addresses look something like...

UKUSA.C-Bus.Rabbit:G07

...which is Group 7 on C-Bus - whenever this changes a
message comes out from G07 and UID=FF123407 say and I can target it to set
the Group to a level. If the Group is called "HallLight" then it
would still
use a UID of say FF123407 but then obviously my source address changes to

UKUSA.C-Bus.Rabbit:HallLight

Ian's comment on wildcarding sub addresses got me to realise that in
a multi interface IO controller most wildcarding will probably be in the
sub
instances rather than the address so I ask the question.. Given two source
addresses

acme.controller.upstairs.bedroom1:centrelight FF222201 ???
acme.controller.upstairs.bedroom2:centrelight FF222202 ???

Is it correct to have those UID's or by definition must the
centre 4 digits be different as the fundamental source address is
different,
meaning the addresses should have been written

acme.controller.upstairs:bedroom1.centrelight FF222201
acme.controller.upstairs:bedroom2.centrelight FF222202

this time implying two different endpoints on the same controller -
which is correct. (I believe) It has an implication on heartbeats as well
as
the first example I believe requires two heartbeats and the second just one
as there is just one xAPp. Which does mean sub instance wildcarding is
going to be used and that sub instances may well have hierarchical names
like :Lights.Hall.TableLamp -- until of course we have 'groups' that
simplifies all this selection process.

K