[minhmeoke]

This is similar to a Karnaugh Map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vkMgTmieZI

Basically, you can map the data values into a boolean truth table representation:

      a b c
    1 x x x
    2 x x x
    3 x

And use the Karnaugh Map to visually simplify:

      a b c
    1 ┌───┐
    2 └───┘
    3 □

into:

    {1,2}{a,b,c}
    {3}{a}

If you'd like to do this algorithmically, there are Karnaugh solver libraries which use algorithms such as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine%E2%80%93McCluskey_algori...

[pm2222]

Very nice. Can this be applied to more than 4 dimensions?

This problem is an abstract of a network firewall rule optimization. The a,b,c... are for source IP/net, destination IP/net, protocol/port, permit/deny and probably more like zone names.