## Parametrized automaton definitions

In the previous lesson, automaton definition/instantiation was used to obtain two identical automata, while only having to specify their behavior once. What we have seen so far, is enough for exactly identical automata, but not for nearly identical automata. Consider the following two nearly identical consumers:

    automaton consumer1:
      disc list int buffer = [];

      location:
        initial;
        edge provide? when size(buffer) < 2 do buffer := buffer + [?];
    end

    automaton consumer2:
      disc list int buffer = [];

      location:
        initial;
        edge provide? when size(buffer) < 3 do buffer := buffer + [?];
    end

The consumers can accept products that the producer provides (channel `provide`). They store the identification numbers of those products in a `buffer`. The two consumers are identical except for the number of products that they can accept: the first consumer can accept two products, the second producer can accept three products. We can still use automaton definition and instantiation to model the consumer only once, but we need to parametrize the automaton definition:

    automaton def Consumer(alg int capacity):
      disc list int buffer = [];

      location:
        initial;
        edge provide? when size(buffer) < capacity do buffer := buffer + [?];
    end

    consumer1: Consumer(2);
    consumer2: Consumer(3);

The `Consumer` automaton definition now has a parameter named `capacity` that indicates how many identification numbers can be stored in its `buffer`. The automaton instantiations `consumer1` and `consumer2` provide an argument (`2` and `3` respectively) to match the parameter of `Consumer`. That is, the instantiations indicate their `capacity`. Using parameters, the `Consumer` automaton definition models the behavior of both automata `consumer1` and `consumer2`, even though they have different capacities.

The details of the different kind of parameters of automaton definitions are explained in the next lesson.