A slot is a slit or narrow opening, especially one used for receiving something, as a coin or a letter. A slot can also refer to a position or assignment.
The term can also be applied to a machine or device, such as a computer, television, or game console, that accepts cash or paper tickets with barcodes (or similar tokens) for activation and issuance of credits. These machines are typically found in casinos and other gaming establishments, but can also be found at other locations where gambling is legal.
In a video game, a slot is the space on a screen where the player can place bets. The slot size can vary, depending on the game and the number of paylines it has. The most common slots are single-line games, while others have up to 10 lines. Some have symbols associated with specific themes, such as fruit, bells, and stylized lucky sevens.
Another type of slot is a table slot, which can contain any sort of data table. This includes curves (2-Dimensional) and surfaces (3-Dimensional). A table slot can also contain multiple unrelated sets of data, as is the case when modeling a reservoir level. A specialized table slot is called a periodic slot, which can hold data that repeats over a particular time interval. For example, a set of monthly evaporation coefficients for a reservoir could be held in a periodic slot, which would be a convenient way to represent the data rather than using a series slot for each year’s worth of data.
Other types of slots include the scalar slot and the expression slot. The scalar slot is used to hold a single numeric value that will not change with time, while the expression slot contains values computed from a user-defined arithmetic expression. The Configure Slot dialog is displayed for each of these slots, and provides options that are specific to that type of slot.
There are several different ways to configure a slot, including its display precision and how its repeated values are stored. A slot can also be configured to compress repeated values, so that editing a selected value changes all the other values in the slot. Finally, a slot can be configured to show or hide its repeating values.
Once a slot is configured, it is ready to be used in the RiverWare model. It can be displayed on a graph or included in a System Control Table (SCT). Integer indexed slots are supported, but they are functionally equivalent to standard series slots. To access configuration and menu options for a specific slot, highlight it in the Workspace and select View, then Slot Viewers. From the Slot Viewer, you can drag a column header to reorder the columns in the slot, or click the Edit Slot icon to open the Slot Dialog. For some types of slots, such as expression and periodic slots with constant input, not all the menu options are available in the Slot Viewer.