May 2012 - dfdl-wg - lists.ogf.org

Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - need DFDL string literal constructor
by Steve Hanson 19 Jun '12

19 Jun '12

Agreed today that such a function is needed, errata taken. Proposals for function name welcome. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 20/04/2012 09:04 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - need DFDL string literal constructor I think what we need is a function that takes a string and returns the equivalent DFDL string literal. It looks for the characters that need cause problems (%, space) and replaces them (with '%%' and '%SP;' respectively), and if the string is the empty string replaces it with '%ES;'. I think it's just those that are problematic, as all other characters will be interpreted correctly (the entity syntax is primarily just for convenience of data entry). Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 19/04/2012 14:27 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof Ok, these are very good reasons. So we need the function(s) in our xpath library to make doing this same substitution easy (e.g., the replace function discussed elsewhere in this thread would do it I believe because all we have to do is replace "%" with "%%".) On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Steve Hanson <smh(a)uk.ibm.com> wrote: The reason that % needs escaping is that most entities start with just % - eg %NUL; - and it means we have simple rules - you want to use a literal % then escape it. and if you use just % then we expect to see an entity next. If we don't do it this way, then we will not be able to extend the list of entities in the future without breaking existing expressions, and we won't detect the very common error of leaving off the trailing semi-colon by mistake.. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB, dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 19/04/2012 14:01 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof I don't think % by itself requires any escaping. There is only a need for escaping when the characters after the % match the syntax for one of our entities. I don't expect Dfdl:terminator="%done%" to require any escaping. On Apr 19, 2012 7:16 AM, "Steve Hanson" <smh(a)uk.ibm.com> wrote: Tim, thinking some more on this: - A DFDL expression is sometimes allowed to *return* a DFDL String Literal. In this case, the returned value is an xs:string that conforms to the DFDL String Literal syntax That is indeed how properties like initiator, terminator and separator behave today. But there is a problem. Let's say I have dynamically defined a separator at the start of my data. The value in the data is %. My dfdl:separator expression therefore returns %. That will give an error as a badly formed DFDL entity. DFDL string literal rules say that you must use %% to represent a single % character. The expression itself can work around this by checking for % and if so substituting %%, but that's a bit unfriendly especially as fn:replace() is not in the DFDL XPath subset - I think this is because it comes under this category http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#string.match and not http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/#substring.functions. Perhaps we should include fn:replace() or provide a DFDL function that handles %? I started wondering whether these properties' expression should return a list of String. I can envisage no format that has in its data a value that contains DFDL entity syntax and intends it to mean a DFDL entity! That is too contrived to be real. However I can certainly envisage an expression like this: dfdl:separator = "{if ../version eq 1 then %CR;%LF; else %LF;}" So I think String is not sufficient and DFDL String Literal must be allowed. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com>, dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 19/04/2012 11:32 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof I agree with all of that. One refinement, though. I don't think it's necessary to *require* an implementation to auto-cast the result of a DFDL Expression into the target type. If an implementation wants to be picky about the return type AND issue a clearly-worded Schema Definition Error stating what the problem is then I think we should allow it. Arguably, this would reduce the portability of DFDL schemas, but there is precedent for defining a portable subset of a language while allowing conveniences for users who don't need portability ( e.g. ANSI 'C' ). We already take that line for the regular expression syntax, so there is precedent for this in the DFDL specification too. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM Cc: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com>, dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 19/04/2012 11:04 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof Hi Tim Firstly, both your bulleted assertions are correct, but your conclusion is not. Secondly, let me flesh out my earlier reply about constructor functions. The last paragraph of Section 23 says: "The result of evaluating the expression must be a single atomic value of the type expected by the context, and it is a schema definition error otherwise". This is where the XPath constructors come into play. Eg: <element name="myHexBin" type="xs:hexBinary" dfdl:inputValueCalc="{ xs:hexBinary (...) }"/> These xs: constructors, plus the special fn:dateTime() constructor that DFDL adds, allow the correct types to be created. Note that you don't always need the constructors. An expression that returns a quoted value is returning an XPath string literal so that is automatically xs:string. An expression that returns an unquoted number is returning an XPath number literal so that can be xs:decimal, xs:integer, xs:double (depends whether the number contains a '.' or 'e' or 'E'). This is described here: http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath20/#id-literals So simply returning the literal 'DEADBEEF' will return an xs:string and if the context requires xs:hexBinary that is a schema definition error according to DFDL spec. A clarification is worth while though. Take the following expression: {if ../type eq 'A' then 10000 else 20000}. That returns xs:integer. - What if my context was xs:decimal? xs:integer is a restriction of xs:decimal so the value will always be in range, so is that 'auto-cast' allowed? - What if my context was xs:long or another restriction of xs:integer? The value may or may not be in range, so is that 'auto-cast' iff value in range? I think that we should auto-cast when type restrictoions are involved, and clarify that in the spec. We *could* change the spec to say that the result of the expression is always automatically cast to the type expected by the context. That takes some of the burden off the modeler and makes it much more likely that expressions written by XPath novices will return the correct results. But it could also hide accidental errors. Note this proposal I shall call (d) as it not the same as Mike's (c). If we made this change, then returning the literal 'DEADBEEF' for xs:hexBinary would succeed. I don't think it affects the desire for expressions to be statically type checkable - because it is known whether type X can be cast to type Y, so a cast mismatch can be statically detected. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM To: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org, Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 19/04/2012 09:35 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof I'm pretty sure that the rules are: - DFDL expressions must not *contain* DFDL String Literals. They must be valid XPath 2.0 expressions except that the list of allowable function names includes the DFDL extension functions. - A DFDL expression is sometimes allowed to *return* a DFDL String Literal. In this case, the returned value is an xs:string that conforms to the DFDL String Literal syntax. But that does not apply to your example because the dfdl:inputValueCalc must return a value ( an XML value ) that is valid for the type of the element. I think that corresponds to your answer a) ; 'DEADBEEF' is a valid xs:hexBinary lexical value. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 19/04/2012 07:42 Subject: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - Re: String literals - various usage patterns thereof Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org What is the DFDL string literal syntax for a hexBinary type value? E.g., I want a hex binary whose value is the 4 bytes described by this hex: DE AD BE EF. <element name="myHexBin" type="xs:hexBinary" dfdl:inputValueCalc="{ ... }"/> So, what can one syntactically put, for literal constant values, in the input value calculation expression? Note that this is legal pure (non-DFDL) XSD (I think) <element name="aHexBin" type="xs:hexBinary" fixed="DeadBeef"/> That is, the fixed/default are allowed and one specifies these values as just strings of hex digits. Notice no special escaping or anything. You just use a string that just so happens to contain hex digits. I think there are three possibilites (a) we allow "DEADBEEF" i.e., because the type of the expression is hexBinary, a string is cast to hexBinary by interpreting it as hex nibbles. (b) we require a special kind of string literal - a bytes-only string literal, so for example: "%#rDE;%#rAD;%#rBE;%#rEF;" is the way you create 4 bytes. If you just put characters, then that's a processing error - like a cast failure. Only raw-bytes allowed. (c) Anything you return from the expression is converted to a hexBinary by unparsing it to bytes (using current properties), then using the bytes as the hexBinary data. So you could have an expression that returns a double, and that would create 8 bytes if representation="binary". In this case the decimal number 3735928559 (hex 0xdeadbeef) as a binary bigEndian int would produce the 4 bytes I want. -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU -- Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL WG Co-Chair Tel: 781-330-0412 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier
by Steve Hanson 12 Jun '12

12 Jun '12

Interesting, but there's a problem - variables are currently an optional feature! You could swap variables for paths, which is what I think Mike proposed in an earlier mail? exprSubset = / | / exprList atom = . | .. | identifier exprList = atom | atom / exprList That's essentially equivalent to what MRM provides for its 'repeat reference' and 'length reference' properties. It doesn't handle things like an array count being 0 based, where you need the ability to add 1 to the result. And you can't do a simple comparison, which would make it easy to add choices and discriminators to an implementation. The trouble is that once you add in operators and literals you've pulled in a lot of the language. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM To: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org, Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 25/05/2012 14:29 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier My current thinking is: - Minimum expression language is a simple variable reference. e.g. {$myLength} or {$myParentStructureLength}. - That would require the ability to declare DFDL variables, set them, read them and put them into and out of scope. And restore their value after backtracking if backtracking is supported in the implementation. This would make all the XPath functions optional, and would also make it unnecessary to use an XPath query engine. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB, dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2012 13:58 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier But the expression language is highly restricted in the subset. On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Steve Hanson <smh(a)uk.ibm.com> wrote: Tim I tend to agree with endOfParent as optional. Expression language was kept in the core to handle occursCountKind 'expression' which is also in the core. The examples of binary data we have seen from NSA and ESA both have occurs counts in the data, in the same way as COBOL does. When you have untagged binary data, it's typically the way to provide an array size. It was felt that dropping this from the core did left us with too little capability. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2012 10:07 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier 1) I would make endOfParent an optional feature - there are not many formats that require it. 3) There are many formats that do not require the expression language - it is only required when a property value or an assert/discriminator needs to query already-parsed data. On that basis, I think the entire expression language feature should be optional. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2012 00:08 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Agreed on list, just need to answer questions 1) and 3) below. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 23/05/2012 18:21 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 15/05/2012 09:55 Subject: Making DFDL implementations easier Please see below for a proposal to make an additional set of DFDL features optional. The goal is to make it considerably easier to create a minimal conforming DFDL processor for binary data. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 11/05/2012 12:50 ----- Feature Detection Text representation for types other than String dfdl:representation="text" for Number, Calendar or Boolean types Delimiters dfdl:separator <> "" or dfdl:initiator <> "" or dfdl:terminator <> "" or dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" BCD calendars dfdl:binaryCalendarRep="bcd" Multiple schemas xs:include or xs:import in xsd Named Formats dfdl:defineFormat or dfdl:ref Choices xs:choice in xsd ** Arrays where size not known in advance dfdl:occursCountKind 'implicit', 'parsed', 'stopValue' ** Advanced expressions Advanced features of the DFDL expression language (tbd) ** Including one of these features mean that speculative parsing is needed. Remaining questions: 1) What about lengthKind 'endOfParent' ? 2) Is leaving out choices too restrictive? 3) Expression language subset The result is that a minimal conformant DFDL implementation just needs to support the following annotations and properties, and does not need speculative parsing. dfdl:element dfdl:sequence dfdl:format byteOrder encoding utf16width alignment alignmentUnits (bytes) fillByte leadingSkip trailingSkip lengthKind (explicit, implicit) length lengthUnits (bytes, characters) representation (binary) textPadKind textTrimKind textStringJustification textStringPadCharacter truncateSpecifiedLengthString decimalSigned binaryNumberRep binaryVirtualDecimalPoint binaryFloatRep (ieee) binaryBooleanTrueRep binaryBooleanFalseRep binaryCalendarRep (binarySeconds, binaryMilliseconds) binaryCalendarEpoch sequenceKind (ordered) occursCountKind (fixed, expression) occursCount Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg -- Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL WG Co-Chair Tel: 781-330-0412 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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Cancelled: OGF DFDL Working Group weekly call
by Steve Hanson 31 May '12

31 May '12

Public holiday in UK

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Possible DFDL spec errata
by Steve Hanson 29 May '12

29 May '12

These were on the agenda for today's cancelled call. 2. Is parent/child alignment rule too strict? Spec property description for alignment says "The alignment of a child component must be less than or equal the alignment of its parent element, sequence or choice". Experiments with creating DFDL schema from C structures have shown that this rule is violated. It seems unnecessary. Specifically, C ensures that the alignment of objects in a repeating structure is preserved by rounding up the length of the structure, rather than aligning it. 3. Does DFDL need to support signed integer types with lengthUnits 'bits'? Spec only allows unsigned integers to have lengthUnits 'bits', but it is possible in C structures to delare bit fields for signed integers. They behave like two's complement. It looks like the spec is being too restrictive in its types for 'bits'. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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OGF DFDL WG Call 2012-05-29 - cancelled
by Steve Hanson 29 May '12

29 May '12

Not enough folk to make a quorum. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, DFDL, IBM SWG Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848

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OGF DFDL WG Call Agenda 2012-05-29
by Steve Hanson 29 May '12

29 May '12

Please find agenda for the above call on GridForge at https://forge.ogf.org/sf/docman/do/downloadDocument/projects.dfdl-wg/docman… Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848

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Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier
by Steve Hanson 25 May '12

25 May '12

Tim I tend to agree with endOfParent as optional. Expression language was kept in the core to handle occursCountKind 'expression' which is also in the core. The examples of binary data we have seen from NSA and ESA both have occurs counts in the data, in the same way as COBOL does. When you have untagged binary data, it's typically the way to provide an array size. It was felt that dropping this from the core did left us with too little capability. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Tim Kimber/UK/IBM To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2012 10:07 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier 1) I would make endOfParent an optional feature - there are not many formats that require it. 3) There are many formats that do not require the expression language - it is only required when a property value or an assert/discriminator needs to query already-parsed data. On that basis, I think the entire expression language feature should be optional. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2012 00:08 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Agreed on list, just need to answer questions 1) and 3) below. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 23/05/2012 18:21 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 15/05/2012 09:55 Subject: Making DFDL implementations easier Please see below for a proposal to make an additional set of DFDL features optional. The goal is to make it considerably easier to create a minimal conforming DFDL processor for binary data. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 11/05/2012 12:50 ----- Feature Detection Text representation for types other than String dfdl:representation="text" for Number, Calendar or Boolean types Delimiters dfdl:separator <> "" or dfdl:initiator <> "" or dfdl:terminator <> "" or dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" BCD calendars dfdl:binaryCalendarRep="bcd" Multiple schemas xs:include or xs:import in xsd Named Formats dfdl:defineFormat or dfdl:ref Choices xs:choice in xsd ** Arrays where size not known in advance dfdl:occursCountKind 'implicit', 'parsed', 'stopValue' ** Advanced expressions Advanced features of the DFDL expression language (tbd) ** Including one of these features mean that speculative parsing is needed. Remaining questions: 1) What about lengthKind 'endOfParent' ? 2) Is leaving out choices too restrictive? 3) Expression language subset The result is that a minimal conformant DFDL implementation just needs to support the following annotations and properties, and does not need speculative parsing. dfdl:element dfdl:sequence dfdl:format byteOrder encoding utf16width alignment alignmentUnits (bytes) fillByte leadingSkip trailingSkip lengthKind (explicit, implicit) length lengthUnits (bytes, characters) representation (binary) textPadKind textTrimKind textStringJustification textStringPadCharacter truncateSpecifiedLengthString decimalSigned binaryNumberRep binaryVirtualDecimalPoint binaryFloatRep (ieee) binaryBooleanTrueRep binaryBooleanFalseRep binaryCalendarRep (binarySeconds, binaryMilliseconds) binaryCalendarEpoch sequenceKind (ordered) occursCountKind (fixed, expression) occursCount Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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Action 174: Making DFDL implementations easier
by Steve Hanson 25 May '12

25 May '12

Agreed on list, just need to answer questions 1) and 3) below. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 23/05/2012 18:21 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 15/05/2012 09:55 Subject: Making DFDL implementations easier Please see below for a proposal to make an additional set of DFDL features optional. The goal is to make it considerably easier to create a minimal conforming DFDL processor for binary data. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 11/05/2012 12:50 ----- Feature Detection Text representation for types other than String dfdl:representation="text" for Number, Calendar or Boolean types Delimiters dfdl:separator <> "" or dfdl:initiator <> "" or dfdl:terminator <> "" or dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" BCD calendars dfdl:binaryCalendarRep="bcd" Multiple schemas xs:include or xs:import in xsd Named Formats dfdl:defineFormat or dfdl:ref Choices xs:choice in xsd ** Arrays where size not known in advance dfdl:occursCountKind 'implicit', 'parsed', 'stopValue' ** Advanced expressions Advanced features of the DFDL expression language (tbd) ** Including one of these features mean that speculative parsing is needed. Remaining questions: 1) What about lengthKind 'endOfParent' ? 2) Is leaving out choices too restrictive? 3) Expression language subset The result is that a minimal conformant DFDL implementation just needs to support the following annotations and properties, and does not need speculative parsing. dfdl:element dfdl:sequence dfdl:format byteOrder encoding utf16width alignment alignmentUnits (bytes) fillByte leadingSkip trailingSkip lengthKind (explicit, implicit) length lengthUnits (bytes, characters) representation (binary) textPadKind textTrimKind textStringJustification textStringPadCharacter truncateSpecifiedLengthString decimalSigned binaryNumberRep binaryVirtualDecimalPoint binaryFloatRep (ieee) binaryBooleanTrueRep binaryBooleanFalseRep binaryCalendarRep (binarySeconds, binaryMilliseconds) binaryCalendarEpoch sequenceKind (ordered) occursCountKind (fixed, expression) occursCount Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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OGF DFDL WG Call Minutes 2012-05-23
by Steve Hanson 23 May '12

23 May '12

Please find minutes from the above call on GridForge at https://forge.ogf.org/sf/docman/do/downloadDocument/projects.dfdl-wg/docman… 4 new actions to progress for next call. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, DFDL, IBM SWG Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848

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Fw: String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - dfdl:property semantic
by Steve Hanson 23 May '12

23 May '12

Agreed to drop dfdl:property() from 1.0. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh(a)uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 23/05/2012 18:19 ----- From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl(a)gmail.com> To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 19/04/2012 23:35 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] String literal syntax for hexBinary ?? - dfdl:property semantic ... But are we all happy that the result of dfdl:property when the property value is an expression, is the result of executing that expression? How complicated is that going to make implementations? Well, what is the use case for dfdl:property() at all? One example would be where there is a choice, and different record formats as the alternatives of the choice depending on the length or number of occurrences of some element. So a discriminator expression would refer to dfdl:property("length",...) for example. However, I do believe we could drop dfdl:property(....), and just say "use variables if you want this behavior". E.g., if I have dfdl:length="{....}" then as the schema author I can always introduce a variable myLen, set its value to that of the expression, change to dfdl:length="{ $myLen }" and where I would have used dfdl:property("length", path), instead just reference the variable as $myLen. I will have to define the variable, and use newVariableInstance so that the variable goes into and out of scope appropriately just like a property value does, but this isn't horribly complex. ...mikeb Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU

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