oneofN
OneofN is a term used to describe a situation in which a choice must be made among N mutually exclusive options, with exactly one option selected. It is a common constraint in statistics, data encoding, user interfaces, and constraint satisfaction problems.
Definition and intent: A oneofN constraint requires that among N candidate values, precisely one is active,
- User interfaces typically implement oneofN with radio buttons, allowing a user to select only one option
- In data encoding, one-hot encoding represents a category as a binary vector of length N with exactly
- In databases, a single value from N possible options can be modeled with an enum type or
- Forms, surveys, and quizzes where exactly one answer is correct or chosen.
- Machine learning and data preprocessing, where categorical features are encoded with one-hot vectors.
- Constraint programming and optimization, where one-of-N constraints enforce mutual exclusivity in scheduling, resource allocation, and configuration
- Some contexts distinguish between exactly-one (one and only one) and at-least-one constraints; oneofN commonly implies exactly
- For large N, one-hot representations can be space-inefficient, prompting alternative encodings or indexing methods.
- In design and accessibility, ensuring that the one-of-N control is clear and navigable is important, particularly
Related concepts include mutually exclusive events, one-hot encoding, and one-of constraints in various programming and mathematical