How do logical operators get processed - specifically OR?

Content Authoring
1

(imported topic written by boerio)

I’m curious to know how BigFix takes care of fixlets that have an OR operator in them, and what will get evaluated and when.

For example, given the following:

exists (whatever) or exists (something else)

If “whatever” is true, will “something else” get evaluated? Since the first half of the statement is true, it would make sense to not do the additional processing.

Thanks.

2

(imported comment written by jessewk)

The relevance engine has short circuit evaluation built in, so after the first FALSE or ERROR in an AND clause it will stop processing. Same is true for the first TRUE or ERROR in an OR clause.

However, boolean logic can’t protect against unknown inspectors, but an “if/then/else” statement can… so if in a single expression you need to use one inspector that exists on one platform and a different inspector that only works on a differnt platform, you can wrap it up in an if statement.

Jesse