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Action 086 Nils and Default processing - draft 10
by Alan Powell 20 Jul '10

20 Jul '10

The latest draft (v10) of nils and defaults mainly improving the description of nilKind and dropping nilIndicator Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, July 14-2010
by Alan Powell 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, July 14-2010 Attendees Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Suman Kalia (IBM) Apologies Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. Current Actions Updated below 2 Nils and Defaults. Discussed Alan updates (v9). Updates still needed. 3. using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding textStringPadCharacter DFDL String literal The padding character or byte value that is used when justifying or trimming text elements. A pad character can be specified using a literal or DFDL entities. A pad byte value must be specified using the %#r entity. DFDL validation rules - if a pad character is specified when lengthUnits='bytes' then the pad character must be a single-byte character. - if a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then the encoding must be a fixed-width encoding. Padding and trimming is be applied using an array of N pad bytes values, where N is the width of a character in the fixed-width encoding. Annotation: dfdl:element, dfdl:simpleType Would adding fillByte to dfdl:textPadKind enumeration make it clearer. padChar is a pad character (%#r not allowed) fillByte is a fill byte Although there was some merit in having separate textPadKinds it was felt it was too late to make the change. The property descriptions (for numbers, calendars and booleans as well) will be improved as above. 4. nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties These properties seem a bit of an anomaly. Tim has suggested they can be simplified. Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. As part of nils default discussion the WG decided to drop dfdl:nilIndicator and dfdl:nilIndicatorIndex as it was felt the complications it introduced on unparsing were not worth the additional function. This may be revisited for DFDL v2. 5. Alignment enumerations when dfdl:lengthUnits = 'bits' When alignmentUnits='bits', the rule that alignment must be 1,2,4,8 etc or multiple of 2 looks rather hard to justify. We should either a) remove the rule entirely and allow any postiive integer > 1 or b) make the rule apply only when alignmentUnits='bytes' It was agreed to remove the restriction on aligmentUnits for both 'bytes' and 'bits'. Also suggested that a note should be added to the default alignment and implicit length tables that 'although the values are specified in bits that does not imply that the dfdl:lengthUnits can be specified as 'bits' for all the simple types 6. Semantics of 'fixed' Not discussed. Action Raised. 7. Clarify the specification of error reporting from a DFDL processor - section 2.3 needs to be updated Not discussed. Action Raised 8 Asserts and discriminators - specify the scope of forward references. Must be downward-only. The expression must be resolvable by the time the component on which it is positioned goes out of scope - otherwise it is a processing error. Not discussed. Action Raised 9 Expressions Discuss error behaviour when evaluating an expression in various contexts - All properties: wrong type returned : schema definition error exception when evaluating expression : schema definition error referenced variables/paths not available : schema definition error - Properties which allow a forward reference referenced variables/paths not available : no error. DFDL processor continues processing until the expression result is available, then acts on the result. Not discussed. Action Raised 10. Grammar for DFDL expression - currently allows multiple predicates on a single expression. Sounds as if this was unintended. Not discussed. Action Raised Meeting closed, 17:00 Next call Wednesday 21 July 2010 15:00 UK (10:00 ET) Next action: 106 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 101 Semantics of 'fixed' 102 Clarify the specification of error reporting from a DFDL processor - section 2.3 needs to be updated 103 Asserts and discriminators - specify the scope of forward references. Must be downward-only. The expression must be resolvable by the time the component on which it is positioned goes out of scope - otherwise it is a processing error. 104 Expressions Discuss error behaviour when evaluating an expression in various contexts - All properties: wrong type returned : schema definition error exception when evaluating expression : schema definition error referenced variables/paths not available : schema definition error - Properties which allow a forward reference referenced variables/paths not available : no error. DFDL processor continues processing until the expression result is available, then acts on the result. 105 Grammar for DFDL expression - currently allows multiple predicates on a single expression. Sounds as if this was unintended. Current Actions: No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 04/12: no update ... 17/02: IBM is willing in principle to publish the test case format and some of the test cases. May need some time to build a 'compliance suite' 24/03: No progress 03/03: Discussions have been taking place on the subset of tests that will be provided. 10/03: work is progressing 17/03: work is progressing 31/03: work is progressing 14/04: And XML test case format has been defined and is being tested. 21/04. Schema for TDML defined. Need to define how this and the test cases will be made public 05/05: Work still progressing 12/05: Work still progressing 02/06: Work still progressing on technical and legal considerations ... 14/07: work continues 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 21/04: Press release, OMG and other standards bodies. 05/05: Alan and Steve H have contacted other standards bodies. Will ask them to add comments on spec 15/05: still no public comments 02/06: No public comments 16/06: Public comments period has ended with no external comments. Alan had posted changes made in draft 041. Steve suggested send a note to the WG highlighting these changes. Steve also suggested requesting an extension as other IBM groups may review. We discussed whether this was necessary as changes will need to be made during the implementation phase anyway. Alan to ask OGF what the process is for changes post public comment. 23/06: Still no comments. Alan will contact OGF to understand the rest of the process. 30/06: Alan has emailed Joel asking what the process is now public comment period is over andcan we update the published version with WG updates. No response yet. 07/07: No response. Alan will chase up 14/07: No response from Joel. Sent email to Greg Newby by no response. 086 AP: Nils and Defaults during unparsing - update table 31/03: TK to documetn use cases for parsing 14/04: Investigate new property to control empty string behaviour. 21/04: After investigation a new property is not required. New rules developed and tables updated. Need examples of complexTypes to confirm tables apply. Review Nils, defaulting spec section. 05/05: Discussed defaulting complex elements. Tables updated but need to add terminator. SH; to confirm WMD behaviour when infoset item has no value on unparsing Need to describe defaulting choices. 15/05: More discussion. Alan updating sections 26/05: Discussed draft updates. Stephanie to confirm asserts do not make an element required. Alan will update draft.. All: review rest of draft. 02/06: Alan updated description. Please review. Discussed Stephanie's example using discriminators. Decided no changes needed. 16/05: went through Steves comments. Steve to update draft. 23/06: Steve's updates to the rules discussed. See minutes. Rest of document needs updating. 30/06: Discussed Alans updates. Some corrections. Alan will send out updated copy for review before next call. 07/07: Discussed Alan updates and Tim and Steve's comments. Still some corrections and updates. 14/07: Discussed Alan updates (v9) Still some corrections and updates. 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. 07/07: Steve sent a proposal but not discussed. Alan will arrange a separate call. 14/07:Discussed Steve's proposal and Suman's and Alan's comments. Need to add choice, validation, facets. Also how does an implementation declare which subsets it supports. Suggested levels and/or profiles. Steve highlighted a problem when a DFDL schema from an implementation of just the core functions was moved to a full DFDL implementation what should happen about the missing properties. Does the full implementation need to be aware of subsets of functions? Should it raise a schema definition error for use of a function not in the subset. 101 Semantics of 'fixed' 102 Clarify the specification of error reporting from a DFDL processor - section 2.3 needs to be updated 103 Asserts and discriminators - specify the scope of forward references. Must be downward-only. The expression must be resolvable by the time the component on which it is positioned goes out of scope - otherwise it is a processing error. 104 Expressions Discuss error behaviour when evaluating an expression in various contexts - All properties: wrong type returned : schema definition error exception when evaluating expression : schema definition error referenced variables/paths not available : schema definition error - Properties which allow a forward reference referenced variables/paths not available : no error. DFDL processor continues processing until the expression result is available, then acts on the result. 105 Grammar for DFDL expression - currently allows multiple predicates on a single expression. Sounds as if this was unintended. Closed actions No Action 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' 31/03: TK to provide definition of calculable length. Investigate PL/I varchars and Cobol occurs dependingon. 14/04Tim had distributed a document starting the definition of calculable length for the longest choice member. Alan had done some investigation of COBOL occurs depending on and when used in the working section of a program then the maximum storage was reserved but when used in the linkage section the dependent number was uses. We need to understand how the WMB COBOL importer deals with ODO. 21/04: Need to define 'calculable length' and WMB importer ODO behaviour. 05/05: TK: Still need definition of calculable length. SKK: WMB COBOL imported behaviour with ODO 15/05: Suman sent an expmle of an imported Cobol ODo which suggested that the maximum space was reserved. He will extend the example. 02/06: no progress 16/06: no progress 23/06: no progress 30/06: Alan looked at Tim's description of calculable length and suggested that that real use case may be much simpler. If real use case is COBOL and C importers then it would be cleaner to require the 'fixed length' to be specified on the enclosing complex element and remove choiceKind 'fixed length'. Ask Suman is COBOL and C importers can be enhance to provide length on cpmplex element. 07/07: Steve had proposed 5 possible approaches to supporting main use case. i) Change the importer to add a parent element for each group. Con: This changes the logical model by inserting an extra level. ii) Allow dfdl:length to be carried on embedded xs:choice (along with dfdl:lengthUnits & dfdl:lengthKind). iii) New dfdl:choiceLength property to be carried on embedded xs:choice (always bytes). iv) dfdl:choiceKind as today. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. v) dfdl:choiceKind but with limitations to make the calculation easier. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. Agreed a modified version of iii) dfdl:choiceKind becomes dfdl:choiceLengthKind with emuns 'implicit' (length of selected branch) and 'explicit' ( length specified by dfd;choiceLength) New property dfdl:choiceLength 14/07: Closed 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 14/07: Although there was some merit in having separate textPadKinds it was felt it was too late to make the change. The property descriptions (for numbers, calendars and booleans as well) will be improved. Closed 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 07/07: Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. Not discussed. 14/07: As part of nils default discussion the WG decided to drop dfdl:nilIndicator and dfdl:nilIndicatorIndex as it was felt the complications it introduced on unparsing were not worth the additional function. This may be revisited for DFDL v2.. Closed 100 Alignment enumerations when dfdl:lengthUnits = 'bits' When alignmentUnits='bits', the rule that alignment must be 1,2,4,8 etc or multiple of 2 looks rather hard to justify. It was agreed to remove the restriction on aligmentUnits for both 'bytes' and 'bits'. Closed Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 070 Write DFDL primer 071 Write test cases. 083 Implement RFC2116 105 AP: Describe trailingSkipBytes for delimited formats. Alan suggested 'dfdl:terminator must be specified and not empty if dfdl:lengthKind is delimited or endOfParent.' 106 AP: Skip Bytes should allow bits Ageed that it should be possible to specify bits. - LSB and TSB renames to dfdl:leadingSkip, dfdl:trailingSkip - units are specified by dfdl:alignmentUnits. 107 Remove timing from dfdl:assert 108 AP: Confirm behaviour of defaulting with various occursCountKinds and separator policies. 30/06: Decided that defaulting for variable occurrence arrays should always be to minOccurs. If separatorPolicy is 'required' then just the separators will be output up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 109 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' dfdl:choiceKind becomes dfdl:choiceLengthKind with emuns 'implicit' (length of selected branch) and 'explicit' ( length specified by dfd;choiceLength) New property dfdl:choiceLength 110 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 14/07: As part of nils default discussion the WG decided to drop dfdl:nilIndicator and dfdl:nilIndicatorIndex 111 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 14/07: Although there was some merit in having separate textPadKinds it was felt it was too late to make the change. The property descriptions (for numbers, calendars and booleans as well) will be improved. Closed 112 Alignment enumerations when dfdl:lengthUnits = 'bits' When alignmentUnits='bits', the rule that alignment must be 1,2,4,8 etc or multiple of 2 looks rather hard to justify. It was agreed to remove the restriction on aligmentUnits for both 'bytes' and 'bits'. Closed Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Subsetting the DFDL spec
by Steve Hanson 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

Some thoughts about subsetting the DFDL spec to make it more consumable for readers and implementors. We need to decide how the use of a subset is indicated in a DFDL xsd. It can be implicit by the properties referenced, or explicit up front. The difference is best illustrated by an example. Let's say Bidi support is a subset and I don't want to use Bidi. If using the implicit method, then I still need the dfdl:textBidi property to be set to 'no' even when in subset mode because the same xsd could be used by a full DFDL processor and it will expect a value. If using explicit, then I don't need to set the dfdl:textBidi property at all, because the DFDL processor will never look for it unless the xsd is switched to include that subset. Here's a straw man for some subsets. Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)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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Action 086 Nils and Default processing - draft 9
by Alan Powell 14 Jul '10

14 Jul '10

A new (v9) nils and defaults section incorporating Steve's and Tim's comments plus comments from last weeks call and other assorted changes. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Agenda for OGF DFDL WG call 14 July 2010 15:00UK (10:00 ET)
by Alan Powell 13 Jul '10

13 Jul '10

1. Current Actions 2 Nils and Defaults. Review draft v9 (to be sent soon) 3. using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding Not discussed textStringPadCharacter DFDL String literal The padding character or byte value that is used when justifying or trimming text elements. A pad character can be specified using DFDL entities. A pad byte value must be specified using the %#r entity. DFDL validation rules - if a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then the encoding must be a fixed-width encoding. - if a pad character is specified when lengthUnits='bytes' then the pad character must be a single-byte character. If a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then padding and trimming must be applied using an array of N pad byte values, where N is the width of a character in the fixed-width encoding. Annotation: dfdl:element, dfdl:simpleType Would adding fillByte to dfdl:padChar enumeration make it clearer. padChar is a pad character (%#r not allowed) fillByte is a fill byte 4. nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties These properties seem a bit of an anomaly. Tim has suggested they can be simplified. Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. Not discussed. 5. Alignment enumerations when dfdl:lengthUnits = 'bits' When alignmentUnits='bits', the rule that alignment must be 1,2,4,8 etc or multiple of 2 looks rather hard to justify. We should either a) remove the rule entirely and allow any postiive integer > 1 or b) make the rule apply only when alignmentUnits='bytes' 6. Semantics of 'fixed' 7. Clarify the specification of error reporting from a DFDL processor - section 2.3 needs to be updated 8 Asserts and discriminators - specify the scope of forward references. Must be downward-only. The expression must be resolvable by the time the component on which it is positioned goes out of scope - otherwise it is a processing error. 9 Expressions Discuss error behaviour when evaluating an expression in various contexts - All properties: wrong type returned : schema definition error exception when evaluating expression : schema definition error referenced variables/paths not available : schema definition error - Properties which allow a forward reference referenced variables/paths not available : no error. DFDL processor continues processing until the expression result is available, then acts on the result. 10. Grammar for DFDL expression - currently allows multiple predicates on a single expression. Sounds as if this was unintended. Current Actions: No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 04/12: no update ... 17/02: IBM is willing in principle to publish the test case format and some of the test cases. May need some time to build a 'compliance suite' 24/03: No progress 03/03: Discussions have been taking place on the subset of tests that will be provided. 10/03: work is progressing 17/03: work is progressing 31/03: work is progressing 14/04: And XML test case format has been defined and is being tested. 21/04. Schema for TDML defined. Need to define how this and the test cases will be made public 05/05: Work still progressing 12/05: Work still progressing 02/06: Work still progressing on technical and legal considerations 16/06: work continues 23/06: work continues 30/06: work continues 07/07: work continues 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 21/04: Press release, OMG and other standards bodies. 05/05: Alan and Steve H have contacted other standards bodies. Will ask them to add comments on spec 15/05: still no public comments 02/06: No public comments 16/06: Public comments period has ended with no external comments. Alan had posted changes made in draft 041. Steve suggested send a note to the WG highlighting these changes. Steve also suggested requesting an extension as other IBM groups may review. We discussed whether this was necessary as changes will need to be made during the implementation phase anyway. Alan to ask OGF what the process is for changes post public comment. 23/06: Still no comments. Alan will contact OGF to understand the rest of the process. 30/06: Alan has emailed Joel asking what the process is now public comment period is over andcan we update the published version with WG updates. No response yet. 07/07: No response. Alan will chase up 086 AP: Nils and Defaults during unparsing - update table 31/03: TK to documetn use cases for parsing 14/04: Investigate new property to control empty string behaviour. 21/04: After investigation a new property is not required. New rules developed and tables updated. Need examples of complexTypes to confirm tables apply. Review Nils, defaulting spec section. 05/05: Discussed defaulting complex elements. Tables updated but need to add terminator. SH; to confirm WMD behaviour when infoset item has no value on unparsing Need to describe defaulting choices. 15/05: More discussion. Alan updating sections 26/05: Discussed draft updates. Stephanie to confirm asserts do not make an element required. Alan will update draft.. All: review rest of draft. 02/06: Alan updated description. Please review. Discussed Stephanie's example using discriminators. Decided no changes needed. 16/05: went through Steves comments. Steve to update draft. 23/06: Steve's updates to the rules discussed. See minutes. Rest of document needs updating. 30/06: Discussed Alans updates. Some corrections. Alan will send out updated copy for review before next call. 07/07: Discussed Alan updates and Tim and Steve's comments. Still some corrections and updates. 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' 31/03: TK to provide definition of calculable length. Investigate PL/I varchars and Cobol occurs dependingon. 14/04Tim had distributed a document starting the definition of calculable length for the longest choice member. Alan had done some investigation of COBOL occurs depending on and when used in the working section of a program then the maximum storage was reserved but when used in the linkage section the dependent number was uses. We need to understand how the WMB COBOL importer deals with ODO. 21/04: Need to define 'calculable length' and WMB importer ODO behaviour. 05/05: TK: Still need definition of calculable length. SKK: WMB COBOL imported behaviour with ODO 15/05: Suman sent an expmle of an imported Cobol ODo which suggested that the maximum space was reserved. He will extend the example. 02/06: no progress 16/06: no progress 23/06: no progress 30/06: Alan looked at Tim's description of calculable length and suggested that that real use case may be much simpler. If real use case is COBOL and C importers then it would be cleaner to require the 'fixed length' to be specified on the enclosing complex element and remove choiceKind 'fixed length'. Ask Suman is COBOL and C importers can be enhance to provide length on cpmplex element. 07/07: Steve had proposed 5 possible approaches to supporting main use case. i) Change the importer to add a parent element for each group. Con: This changes the logical model by inserting an extra level. ii) Allow dfdl:length to be carried on embedded xs:choice (along with dfdl:lengthUnits & dfdl:lengthKind). iii) New dfdl:choiceLength property to be carried on embedded xs:choice (always bytes). iv) dfdl:choiceKind as today. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. v) dfdl:choiceKind but with limitations to make the calculation easier. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. Agreed a modified version of iii) dfdl:choiceKind becomes dfdl:choiceLengthKind with emuns 'implicit' (length of selected branch) and 'explicit' ( length specified by dfd;choiceLength) New property dfdl:choiceLength 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 07/07: not discussed 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 07/07: Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. Not discussed. 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. 07/07: Steve sent a proposal but not discussed. Alan will arrange a separate call. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, July 07-2010
by Alan Powell 09 Jul '10

09 Jul '10

Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, July 07-2010 Attendees Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Suman Kalia (IBM) Apologies Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. Current Actions Updated below 2 Nils and Defaults. Discussed Alan updates and Tim and Steve's comments. Still some corrections and updates. Needs to have a introductory paragraph. 3 DFDL property types and other issues. Not discussed Tim has proposed more specific types for some properties. In particular separating the different kinds of entities. - Modify the meaning and usage of the type 'DFDL String Literal' and modify the remainder of the specification accordingly - Improve the description of DFDL entities to avoid confusion over the intended usage of raw byte values. - Clarify the standard sentence about forward references in DFDL expressions - the current text implied that the restrictions only applied to the unparser. On parsing: No forward references allow for expressions that provide property values. Asserts and discriminators may have downward references (need to be defined) and expression must be evaluated by the time the element has been processed. On unparsing: outputValueCalc may have a forward reference. 1.1 DFDL Properties Properties on DFDL annotations may be one or more of the following types · DFDL string literal The property value is a string that represents a sequence of literal bytes or characters which appear in the data stream. · List of DFDL string literals The property value is a space-separated list of DFDL string literals. When parsing, if more than one string literal in the list matches the portion of the data stream being evaluated then the longest matching string literal in the list must be used. When unparsing, the first string literal in the list must be used. · DFDL expression The property value is an DFDL subset XPath 2.0 expression that returns a value derived from other property values and/or from the DFDL infoset. · DFDL regular expression The property value is a regular expression that can be used as a pattern to calculate the length of an element by applying that pattern to the sequence of literal bytes or characters which appear in the data stream. · Enumeration The property value is one of the allowed values listed in the property description. · Logical Value Simple Type The property value is a string that describes a logical value. The type of the logical value is one of the XML Schema simple types. · QName The property value is an XML Qualified Name as specified in ?Namespaces in XML ?. Identify which types can be a list or Union The property value is a space-separated list. When parsing, if more than one string literal in the list matches the portion of the data stream being evaluated then the longest matching string literal in the list must be used. When unparsing, the first value in the list must be used. 1.1.1.1 DFDL Entities in String Literals XML entities should not be listed as they are valid in any property value. 1.1.1.1 Character classes in DFDL String literals 1.1.1.1 Raw byte values in DFDL String Literals 4. using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding Not discussed textStringPadCharacter DFDL String literal The padding character or byte value that is used when justifying or trimming text elements. A pad character can be specified using DFDL entities. A pad byte value must be specified using the %#r entity. DFDL validation rules - if a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then the encoding must be a fixed-width encoding. - if a pad character is specified when lengthUnits='bytes' then the pad character must be a single-byte character. If a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then padding and trimming must be applied using an array of N pad byte values, where N is the width of a character in the fixed-width encoding. Annotation: dfdl:element, dfdl:simpleType Would adding fillByte to dfdl:padChar enumeration make it clearer. padChar is a pad character (%#r not allowed) fillByte is a fill byte 5. nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties These properties seem a bit of an anomaly. Tim has suggested they can be simplified. Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. Not discussed. Meeting closed, 17:00 Next call Wednesday 14 July 2010 15:00 UK (10:00 ET) Next action: 100 Actions raised at this meeting No Action Current Actions: No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 04/12: no update ... 17/02: IBM is willing in principle to publish the test case format and some of the test cases. May need some time to build a 'compliance suite' 24/03: No progress 03/03: Discussions have been taking place on the subset of tests that will be provided. 10/03: work is progressing 17/03: work is progressing 31/03: work is progressing 14/04: And XML test case format has been defined and is being tested. 21/04. Schema for TDML defined. Need to define how this and the test cases will be made public 05/05: Work still progressing 12/05: Work still progressing 02/06: Work still progressing on technical and legal considerations 16/06: work continues 23/06: work continues 30/06: work continues 07/07: work continues 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 21/04: Press release, OMG and other standards bodies. 05/05: Alan and Steve H have contacted other standards bodies. Will ask them to add comments on spec 15/05: still no public comments 02/06: No public comments 16/06: Public comments period has ended with no external comments. Alan had posted changes made in draft 041. Steve suggested send a note to the WG highlighting these changes. Steve also suggested requesting an extension as other IBM groups may review. We discussed whether this was necessary as changes will need to be made during the implementation phase anyway. Alan to ask OGF what the process is for changes post public comment. 23/06: Still no comments. Alan will contact OGF to understand the rest of the process. 30/06: Alan has emailed Joel asking what the process is now public comment period is over andcan we update the published version with WG updates. No response yet. 07/07: No response. Alan will chance up 086 AP: Nils and Defaults during unparsing - update table 31/03: TK to documetn use cases for parsing 14/04: Investigate new property to control empty string behaviour. 21/04: After investigation a new property is not required. New rules developed and tables updated. Need examples of complexTypes to confirm tables apply. Review Nils, defaulting spec section. 05/05: Discussed defaulting complex elements. Tables updated but need to add terminator. SH; to confirm WMD behaviour when infoset item has no value on unparsing Need to describe defaulting choices. 15/05: More discussion. Alan updating sections 26/05: Discussed draft updates. Stephanie to confirm asserts do not make an element required. Alan will update draft.. All: review rest of draft. 02/06: Alan updated description. Please review. Discussed Stephanie's example using discriminators. Decided no changes needed. 16/05: went through Steves comments. Steve to update draft. 23/06: Steve's updates to the rules discussed. See minutes. Rest of document needs updating. 30/06: Discussed Alans updates. Some corrections. Alan will send out updated copy for review before next call. 07/07: Discussed Alan updates and Tim and Steve's comments. Still some corrections and updates. 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' 31/03: TK to provide definition of calculable length. Investigate PL/I varchars and Cobol occurs dependingon. 14/04Tim had distributed a document starting the definition of calculable length for the longest choice member. Alan had done some investigation of COBOL occurs depending on and when used in the working section of a program then the maximum storage was reserved but when used in the linkage section the dependent number was uses. We need to understand how the WMB COBOL importer deals with ODO. 21/04: Need to define 'calculable length' and WMB importer ODO behaviour. 05/05: TK: Still need definition of calculable length. SKK: WMB COBOL imported behaviour with ODO 15/05: Suman sent an expmle of an imported Cobol ODo which suggested that the maximum space was reserved. He will extend the example. 02/06: no progress 16/06: no progress 23/06: no progress 30/06: Alan looked at Tim's description of calculable length and suggested that that real use case may be much simpler. If real use case is COBOL and C importers then it would be cleaner to require the 'fixed length' to be specified on the enclosing complex element and remove choiceKind 'fixed length'. Ask Suman is COBOL and C importers can be enhance to provide length on cpmplex element. 07/07: Steve had proposed 5 possible approaches to supporting main use case. i) Change the importer to add a parent element for each group. Con: This changes the logical model by inserting an extra level. ii) Allow dfdl:length to be carried on embedded xs:choice (along with dfdl:lengthUnits & dfdl:lengthKind). iii) New dfdl:choiceLength property to be carried on embedded xs:choice (always bytes). iv) dfdl:choiceKind as today. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. v) dfdl:choiceKind but with limitations to make the calculation easier. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. Agreed a modified version of iii) dfdl:choiceKind becomes dfdl:choiceLengthKind with emuns 'implicit' (length of selected branch) and 'explicit' ( length specified by dfd;choiceLength) New property dfdl:choiceLength 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 07/07: not discussed 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 07/07: Tim had emaled Mike with a proposal and Steve had responded with 3 alternatives 1) Leave things as they are, perhaps renaming 'nilIndicator' to 'indicator' 2) Collapse nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex to a single property. It means the path is repeated, but it makes nils consistent with length and occurs. For all, you can always use a string variable to hold the constant part of the path and concatenate with the index. And if we improve usability in a future DFDL release, we would improve it for nils, lengths and occurs at the same time. 3) Drop the properties for 1.0 altogether on the grounds that it is a rare case. I've never seen such a format, but we know Mike has. Not discussed. 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. 07/07: Steve sent a proposal but not discussed. Alan will arrange a separate call. Closed actions No Action 092 AP: Confirm behaviour of defaulting with various occursCountKinds and separator policies. 16/06: no progress 23/06: discussed - whether when number of instances doesn't match specified number of occurrences is it an error or should missing instances be defaulted? Decided it is an error. - defaulting occurs up to minoccurs unless separator policy is required when default up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 30/06: Decided that defaulting for variable occurrence arrays should always be to minOccurs. If separatorPolicy is 'required' then just the separators will be output up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 07/07: Agreed last call's decision. Closed Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 070 Write DFDL primer 071 Write test cases. 083 Implement RFC2116 105 AP: Describe trailingSkipBytes for delimited formats. Alan suggested 'dfdl:terminator must be specified and not empty if dfdl:lengthKind is delimited or endOfParent.' 106 AP: Skip Bytes should allow bits Ageed that it should be possible to specify bits. - LSB and TSB renames to dfdl:leadingSkip, dfdl:trailingSkip - units are specified by dfdl:alignmentUnits. 107 Remove timing from dfdl:assert 108 AP: Confirm behaviour of defaulting with various occursCountKinds and separator policies. 30/06: Decided that defaulting for variable occurrence arrays should always be to minOccurs. If separatorPolicy is 'required' then just the separators will be output up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing - draft 7
by Alan Powell 07 Jul '10

07 Jul '10

All Latest draft (v7 )of the nils and default document incorporating comments from this week. Please send comments before next WG call. Still having problems with bulleted lists Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Alan Powell/UK/IBM on 02/07/2010 15:32 ----- From: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 30/06/2010 13:05 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing All Latest draft of the nils and default document incorporating comments from last week. As you will see I have been having problems with bulleted lists in word which are still not correct but I assume I can fix for the spec. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Alan Powell/UK/IBM on 30/06/2010 13:01 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 25/06/2010 16:07 Subject: Fw: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing Hi Alan - were you going to take the updates forward, or did you want me to make some changes first? Reviewed Steve's updates to the parsing and unparsing rules. - it might be possible to simplify the nil processing in the rules by having a defintion up front. - 'nil indicator set' need a definition - Discussion about whether 'usNilForDefaults' could be replaced by some way of defining a literal, out of band value for the default. - 'value' used when should be 'output value' - dfdl:emptyValueDelimietrPolicy description should be moved from defaulting section to initiator section. - 'text markup' used in section 14.2 of spec Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 25/06/2010 16:00 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 23/06/2010 11:18 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing Here's my latest updates. As discussed I have reworked the 'Nils & Defaults on parsing/unparsing' sections. One question was thrown up. On parsing when a required complex element is missing, we add it to the infoset as long as applying default processing to its missing children does not cause an error. You will see I have used the phrase 'Missing element processing is applied to all child elements.' to cover this. But 'Missing element processing' as now spelled out in the same section includes 'nillable and empty string' processing when the child is simple. Does this apply here? [attachment "dfdl-nils-defaults-v5-SMH.doc" deleted by Alan Powell/UK/IBM] Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)1962-815848 From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 16/06/2010 14:40 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing Hi Alan I've updated the document and added some comments. Still quite a bit to discuss. Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)1962-815848 From: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 02/06/2010 11:21 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org I have updated based on last weeks call Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Alan Powell/UK/IBM on 02/06/2010 11:20 ----- From: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 25/05/2010 17:27 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Fw: Action 086 Nils and Default processing All I have added unparsing and corrected some of the existing information in this latest version. I did attempt to write out the dfdl:nilValueDelimiterPolicy and dfdl:emptyValueDelimiterPolicy options in full but it became unreadable hence the 'as controlled by' short cut. Links still don't work Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Alan Powell/UK/IBM on 25/05/2010 17:22 ----- From: Alan Powell/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 13/05/2010 17:28 Subject: Action 086 Nils and Default processing All Attached is an updated version of the nils and defaults sections of the specification. I have only completed the parsing section so far which you should be able to review while I am on vacation. If someone would like to add the unparsing section that would be great. Note that the cross references are not correct. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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-nils-defaults v2.doc moved to MyAttachments Repository V3.8 ( Link) on 23 May 2010 by Alan Powell. 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 http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg #### dfdl-nils-defaults v3.doc moved to MyAttachments Repository V3.8 ( Link) on 01 June 2010 by Alan Powell. 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 http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg #### dfdl-nils-defaults v4.doc moved to MyAttachments Repository V3.8 ( Link) on 08 June 2010 by Steve Hanson. 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-nils-defaults-v4-SMH.doc moved to MyAttachments Repository V3.8 (Link) on 22 June 2010 by Steve Hanson. 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 [attachment "dfdl-nils-defaults-v6.1.doc" deleted by Alan Powell/UK/IBM] -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org http://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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Agenda for OGF DFDL WG call 07 July 2010- 15:00 UK (10:00 ET)
by Alan Powell 06 Jul '10

06 Jul '10

1. Current Actions 2 Nils and Defaults. Reviewed Alan's latest draft v7. Please send comments before the call 3 DFDL property types and other issues. Tim has proposed more specific types for some properties. In particular separating the different kinds of entities. - Modify the meaning and usage of the type 'DFDL String Literal' and modify the remainder of the specification accordingly - Improve the description of DFDL entities to avoid confusion over the intended usage of raw byte values. - Clarify the standard sentence about forward references in DFDL expressions - the current text implied that the restrictions only applied to the unparser. 1.1 DFDL Properties Properties on DFDL annotations may be one or more of the following types · DFDL string literal he property value is a string that represents a sequence of literal bytes or characters which appear in the data stream. · List of DFDL string literals The property value is a space-separated list of DFDL string literals. When parsing, if more than one string literal in the list matches the portion of the data stream being evaluated then the longest matching string literal in the list must be used. When unparsing, the first string literal in the list must be used. · DFDL expression The property value is an DFDL subset XPath 2.0 expression that returns a value derived from other property values and/or from the DFDL infoset. · DFDL regular expression The property value is a regular expression that can be used as a pattern to calculate the length of an element by applying that pattern to the sequence of literal bytes or characters which appear in the data stream. · Enumeration The property value is one of the allowed values listed in the property description. · Simple Type The property value is a string that describes a logical value. The type of the logical value is one of the XML Schema simple types. · QName The property value is an XML Qualified Name as specified in ?Namespaces in XML ? 1.1.1.1 DFDL Entities in String Literals 1.1.1.1 Character classes in DFDL String literals 1.1.1.1 Raw byte values in DFDL String Literals 4. using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding textStringPadCharacter DFDL String literal The padding character or byte value that is used when justifying or trimming text elements. A pad character can be specified using DFDL entities. A pad byte value must be specified using the %#r entity. DFDL validation rules - if a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then the encoding must be a fixed-width encoding. - if a pad character is specified when lengthUnits='bytes' then the pad character must be a single-byte character. If a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then padding and trimming must be applied using an array of N pad byte values, where N is the width of a character in the fixed-width encoding. Annotation: dfdl:element, dfdl:simpleType Would adding fillByte to dfdl:padChar enumeration make it clearer. padChar is a pad character (%#r not allowed) fillByte is a fill byte 5. nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties These properties seem a bit of an anomaly. Tim has suggested they can be simplified. 6 Remove timing from dfdl:assert. As timing property has been removed from discriminators it is inconsistent to still have it on assert. Agreed There was also a discussion about adding a message property to discriminators which was inconclusive so decided not to change. 7. Splitting the specification in simpler sections. Concern has been raised that a full DFDL implementation is complicated and expensive. A number of reviewer have said that they might implement only part of the sepcification. It has been suggested that the WG should look to see if it possible to split the specification into more manageable optional sections. Current Actions: No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 04/12: no update ... 17/02: IBM is willing in principle to publish the test case format and some of the test cases. May need some time to build a 'compliance suite' 24/03: No progress 03/03: Discussions have been taking place on the subset of tests that will be provided. 10/03: work is progressing 17/03: work is progressing 31/03: work is progressing 14/04: And XML test case format has been defined and is being tested. 21/04. Schema for TDML defined. Need to define how this and the test cases will be made public 05/05: Work still progressing 12/05: Work still progressing 02/06: Work still progressing on technical and legal considerations 16/06: work continues 23/06: work continues 30/06: work continues 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 21/04: Press release, OMG and other standards bodies. 05/05: Alan and Steve H have contacted other standards bodies. Will ask them to add comments on spec 15/05: still no public comments 02/06: No public comments 16/06: Public comments period has ended with no external comments. Alan had posted changes made in draft 041. Steve suggested send a note to the WG highlighting these changes. Steve also suggested requesting an extension as other IBM groups may review. We discussed whether this was necessary as changes will need to be made during the implementation phase anyway. Alan to ask OGF what the process is for changes post public comment. 23/06: Still no comments. Alan will contact OGF to understand the rest of the process. 30/06: Alan has emailed Joel asking what the process is now public comment period is over andcan we update the published version with WG updates. No response yet. 086 AP: Nils and Defaults during unparsing - update table 31/03: TK to documetn use cases for parsing 14/04: Investigate new property to control empty string behaviour. 21/04: After investigation a new property is not required. New rules developed and tables updated. Need examples of complexTypes to confirm tables apply. Review Nils, defaulting spec section. 05/05: Discussed defaulting complex elements. Tables updated but need to add terminator. SH; to confirm WMD behaviour when infoset item has no value on unparsing Need to describe defaulting choices. 15/05: More discussion. Alan updating sections 26/05: Discussed draft updates. Stephanie to confirm asserts do not make an element required. Alan will update draft.. All: review rest of draft. 02/06: Alan updated description. Please review. Discussed Stephanie's example using discriminators. Decided no changes needed. 16/05: went through Steves comments. Steve to update draft. 23/06: Steve's updates to the rules discussed. See minutes. Rest of document needs updating. 30/06: Discussed Alans updates. Some corrections. Alan will send out updated copy for review before next call. 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' 31/03: TK to provide definition of calculable length. Investigate PL/I varchars and Cobol occurs dependingon. 14/04Tim had distributed a document starting the definition of calculable length for the longest choice member. Alan had done some investigation of COBOL occurs depending on and when used in the working section of a program then the maximum storage was reserved but when used in the linkage section the dependent number was uses. We need to understand how the WMB COBOL importer deals with ODO. 21/04: Need to define 'calculable length' and WMB importer ODO behaviour. 05/05: TK: Still need definition of calculable length. SKK: WMB COBOL imported behaviour with ODO 15/05: Suman sent an expmle of an imported Cobol ODo which suggested that the maximum space was reserved. He will extend the example. 02/06: no progress 16/06: no progress 23/06: no progress 30/06: Alan looked at Tim's description of calculable length and suggested that that real use case may be much simpler. If real use case is COBOL and C importers then it would be cleaner to require the 'fixed length' to be specified on the enclosing complex element and remove choiceKind 'fixed length'. Ask Suman is COBOL and C importers can be enhance to provide length on cpmplex element. 092 AP: Confirm behaviour of defaulting with various occursCountKinds and separator policies. 16/06: no progress 23/06: discussed - whether when number of instances doesn't match specified number of occurrences is it an error or should missing instances be defaulted? Decided it is an error. - defaulting occurs up to minoccurs unless separator policy is required when default up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 30/06: Decided that defaulting for variable occurrence arrays should always be to minOccurs. If separatorPolicy is 'required' then just the separators will be output up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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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Fw: Action : 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength'
by Steve Hanson 06 Jul '10

06 Jul '10

Forwarding to DFDL WG mailing list in anticipation of discussion on this week's call. Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 06/07/2010 10:46 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA Cc: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 05/07/2010 16:06 Subject: Re: Action : 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' We discussed this briefly on the last DFDL OGF WG call. The use case we are trying to support is where a programming language has reserved memory for the longest branch of the choice. I would love to be able to drop the dfdl:choiceKind property and instead use the dfdl:length property of the parent element of the choice, set from the TD size attribute. In other words, we do nothing special for choices; - on input we expect dfdl:length bytes or characters, we parse the chosen branch, if it is short we then skip to the end - on output we serialise the chosen branch, if it is short we then pad out to dfdl:length bytes or characters using dfdl:fillByte. But this has some limitations... a) It only works with choices that are the content model of a complex type b) It forces the DFDL modeller to calculate the length of the choice While b) is not a problem in practice because the importer sets it and not the user, unfortunately a) is, because the importers today generate a xs:group ref to a global choice group, so there is nowhere to carry the dfdl:length property. I think the alternatives are: i) Change the importer to add a parent element for each group. Con: This changes the logical model by inserting an extra level. ii) Allow dfdl:length to be carried on embedded xs:choice (along with dfdl:lengthUnits & dfdl:lengthKind). iii) New dfdl:choiceLength property to be carried on embedded xs:choice (always bytes). iv) dfdl:choiceKind as today. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. v) dfdl:choiceKind but with limitations to make the calculation easier. Con: length from TD model is lost and must be recalculated. The DFDL bottom-up 'model the data' principle would point at i) but there are compatibility issues with existing uses of the importer. That leaves iii) and v) as main contenders. It seems a real shame to throw away the length that the TD model has calculated, so I think we should discuss iii). Regards Steve Hanson Strategy, Common Transformation & DFDL Co-Chair, OGF DFDL WG IBM SWG, Hursley, UK, smh(a)uk.ibm.com, tel +44-(0)1962-815848 From: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA To: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB, Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 12/05/2010 16:25 Subject: Re: Action : 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' See the updated contentSize() function in the attached mxsd file. It takes the largest size value for the choice branch; in this case element x of size 20. 01 A. 05 b pic 9(3). 05 c occurs 1 to 10 times depending on b. 10 x pic x(20). 10 y redefines x. 20 d pic x(5). 20 e pic 9(3). <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xsd:schema xmlns:xsd=" http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <xsd:complexType name="A"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="b"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="3" offset="0" signFormat="trailing" signed="false" size="3" typeName="MRCWFExternalDecimalRep" width="3"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:short"> <xsd:minInclusive value="0"/> <xsd:maxInclusive value="999"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> <xsd:element maxOccurs="10" minOccurs="1" name="c" type="A_c"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="http://www.wsadie.com/appinfo"> <dependingOn>/0/A;XSDComplexTypeDefinition/XSDParticle/XSDModelGroup/XSDParticle/b;XSDElementDeclaration</dependingOn> </xsd:appinfo> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1" repeatRef="/0/A;XSDComplexTypeDefinition/XSDParticle/XSDModelGroup/XSDParticle/b;XSDElementDeclaration"> <cwfAggrRep accessor="readWrite" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="mpy(20,val(1,1))" offset="3" size="200"> <ArrayTD_arrayDescr alignmentKind="byte" lowerBound="1" stride="20" strideInBit="false" upperBound="val(1,1)"/> </cwfAggrRep> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:complexType> <xsd:complexType name="A_c"> <xsd:group ref="a_c"/> </xsd:complexType> <xsd:group name="a_c"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:group ref="RedefinedElement_a_c_x_y"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfAggrRep accessor="readWrite" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="20" offset="3" size="20"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:group> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:group> <xsd:group name="RedefinedElement_a_c_x_y"> <xsd:choice> <xsd:element name="x"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="http://www.wsadie.com/appinfo"> <initialValue kind="SPACE"/> </xsd:appinfo> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" characterSize="1" contentSize="20" lengthEncoding="fixedLength" offset="3" paddingCharacter="SPACE" prefixLength="0" size="20" typeName="MRCWFStringRep" width="20"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string"> <xsd:maxLength value="20"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> <xsd:element name="y" type="a_c_y"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfAggrRep accessor="readWrite" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="8" offset="3" size="8"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element> </xsd:choice> </xsd:group> <xsd:group name="a_c_y"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="d"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" characterSize="1" contentSize="5" lengthEncoding="fixedLength" offset="3" paddingCharacter="SPACE" prefixLength="0" size="5" typeName="MRCWFStringRep" width="5"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string"> <xsd:maxLength value="5"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> <xsd:element name="e"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="3" offset="8" signFormat="trailing" signed="false" size="3" typeName="MRCWFExternalDecimalRep" width="3"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:short"> <xsd:minInclusive value="0"/> <xsd:maxInclusive value="999"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:group> <xsd:complexType name="a_c_y"> <xsd:group ref="a_c_y"/> </xsd:complexType> <xsd:element name="msg_A" type="A"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <MRMessage messageDefinition="/0/msg_A;XSDElementDeclaration$MRObject"/> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element> </xsd:schema> Suman Kalia IBM Toronto Lab WebSphere Message Broker Toolkit Architect and Development Lead WebSphere Business Integration Application Connectivity Tools http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.h… Tel : 905-413-3923 T/L 969-3923 Fax : 905-413-4850 T/L 969-4850 Internet ID : kalia(a)ca.ibm.com From: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM To: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB, Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 05/12/2010 10:22 AM Subject: Action : 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' Attached is the sample cobol copy book and the mxsd generated from it.. It contains the TD model annotations that we don't use in WMB. The TD model annotations that are of particular interest for this action is the contentSize which is an expression that tells the compiler runtime how much memory is actually allocated for the repeating element. The size attribute tells what is the maximum it can have based on the definition in the copy book. >From DFDL perspective, the calculated length (reference Tim's note) would be similar to the contentSize() attribute.. 01 A. 05 b pic 9(3). 05 c occurs 1 to 10 times depending on b. 10 d pic x(5). 10 e pic 9(3). <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xsd:schema xmlns:xsd=" http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <xsd:complexType name="A"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="b"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="3" offset="0" signFormat="trailing" signed="false" size="3" typeName="MRCWFExternalDecimalRep" width="3"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:short"> <xsd:minInclusive value="0"/> <xsd:maxInclusive value="999"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> <xsd:element maxOccurs="10" minOccurs="1" name="c" type="A_c"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="http://www.wsadie.com/appinfo"> <dependingOn>/0/A;XSDComplexTypeDefinition/XSDParticle/XSDModelGroup/XSDParticle/b;XSDElementDeclaration</dependingOn> </xsd:appinfo> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1" repeatRef="/0/A;XSDComplexTypeDefinition/XSDParticle/XSDModelGroup/XSDParticle/b;XSDElementDeclaration"> <cwfAggrRep accessor="readWrite" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="mpy(8,val(1,1))" offset="3" size="80"> <ArrayTD_arrayDescr alignmentKind="byte" lowerBound="1" stride="8" strideInBit="false" upperBound="val(1,1)"/> </cwfAggrRep> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:complexType> <xsd:complexType name="A_c"> <xsd:group ref="a_c"/> </xsd:complexType> <xsd:group name="a_c"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="d"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="http://www.wsadie.com/appinfo"> <initialValue kind="SPACE"/> </xsd:appinfo> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" characterSize="1" contentSize="5" lengthEncoding="fixedLength" offset="3" paddingCharacter="SPACE" prefixLength="0" size="5" typeName="MRCWFStringRep" width="5"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string"> <xsd:maxLength value="5"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> <xsd:element name="e"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <cwfInclRep messageSetDefaultRep="Binary1"> <cwfSimpleRep accessor="readWrite" addrUnit="byte" alignment="byte" attributeInBit="false" contentSize="3" offset="8" signFormat="trailing" signed="false" size="3" typeName="MRCWFExternalDecimalRep" width="3"/> </cwfInclRep> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> <xsd:simpleType> <xsd:restriction base="xsd:short"> <xsd:minInclusive value="0"/> <xsd:maxInclusive value="999"/> </xsd:restriction> </xsd:simpleType> </xsd:element> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:group> <xsd:element name="msg_A" type="A"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo source="WMQI_APPINFO"> <MRMessage messageDefinition="/0/msg_A;XSDElementDeclaration$MRObject"/> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element> </xsd:schema> Suman Kalia IBM Toronto Lab WebSphere Message Broker Toolkit Architect and Development Lead WebSphere Business Integration Application Connectivity Tools http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.h… Tel : 905-413-3923 T/L 969-3923 Fax : 905-413-4850 T/L 969-4850 Internet ID : kalia(a)ca.ibm.com More work to do on this, but no time before the meeting. Let's discuss the rules below, and refine afterwards: If dfdl:choiceKind='fixedLength' then there must be at least one branch of the choice for which all of the content has a calculable length. Definition : A DFDL region is a region of the data stream described by the DFDL grammar. Note : we need to define this term - we use the term 'region' without definition throughout the specification. Sometimes we call it a 'grammar region'. Definition: A DFDL region has a calculable length if the length of its representation in units of bytes can be calculated from the DFDL description alone. The leading alignment region has a calculable length if the alignment of the component is the same as the alignment of the parent. The trailing alignment region has a calculable length if the alignment of the component is the same as the alignment of the parent. Q: Is this rule necessary? The initiator region has a calculable length if all of the possible initiator values have a calculable length. An initiator value is a DFDL string literal. It has a calculable length if the DFDL string literal does not contain any variable-length parts. The terminator region has a calculable length if all of the possible terminator values have a calculable length. A terminator value is a DFDL string literal. It has a calculable length if the DFDL string literal does not contain any variable-length parts. A variable-length part is any of the following - a character string in a variable-width encoding - a DFLD entity in a variable-width encoding - a DFDL generic entity which can match a variable number of characters ( NL, WSP+, WSP* ) The simple content region has a calculable length if both of the following are true: - either the encoding is a fixed-width encoding or the representation does not contain characters. - either lengthKind is 'explicit' and the length is not a DFDL expression or lengthKind is 'implicit' and there is an implicit length for the simple type and its dfdl:representation The complex content region has a calculable length if all of the following are true: - either the encoding is a fixed-width encoding or the representation ( recursively ) does not contain characters. - the element has lengthKind='explicit' and dfdl:length is not a DFDL expression - all group members, recursively, are required ( minOccurs=maxOccurs ) regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 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] dfdl-wg Digest, Vol 47, Issue 1
by Tim Kimber 01 Jul '10

01 Jul '10

re: 6. 6 Remove timing from dfdl:assert. As timing property has been removed from discriminators it is inconsistent to still have it on assert. Agreed There was also a discussion about adding a message property to discriminators which was inconclusive so decided not to change. I remembered the reason why I thought this was a good idea. Consider the situation where someone is generating their DFDL schema from meta-data. The model is large, and consists of many references to global structures. Each global structure ( e.g. an HL7 segment ) is identified in a particular way. Sometimes the segment is required, sometimes it is not. Sometimes it occurs as a child of a choice group, and sometimes not. Regardless, it is highly likely that the segment will be identified in the same way wherever it occurs. A natural decision for the modeler would be to create a dfdl:discriminator on all references to the segement, even if the ref is not under a point of uncertainty. It's harmless, and it carries no performance penalty. If we disallow the "message" attribute, it will force the modeler to put in extra logic to work out whether the ref is under a POI, and generate an assert/discriminator as appropriate. I'd be interested to know what Steph thinks about this - I think I've heard her say that she sometimes uses discriminators where an assert would have done the job, just to maintain consistency throughout the model. regards, Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert(a)uk.ibm.com Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 246742 From: dfdl-wg-request(a)ogf.org To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 01/07/2010 14:47 Subject: dfdl-wg Digest, Vol 47, Issue 1 Send dfdl-wg mailing list submissions to dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to dfdl-wg-request(a)ogf.org You can reach the person managing the list at dfdl-wg-owner(a)ogf.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of dfdl-wg digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Minute for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, June 30-2010 (Alan Powell) ----- Message from Alan Powell <alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com> on Thu, 1 Jul 2010 14:47:07 +0100 ----- To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Subject: [DFDL-WG] Minute for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, June 30-2010 Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, June 30-2010 Attendees Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Apologies Suman Kalia (IBM) Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. Current Actions Updated below 2 Nils and Defaults. Reviewed Alan's latest draft. Agreed with definition of 'required parent context' Preferred the combining of initiated and not initiated rules. Would still like a separate definition of nillable Minor editorial changes. 3 DFDL property types and other issues. Not discussed Tim has proposed more specific types for some properties. In particular separating the different kinds of entities. - Modify the meaning and usage of the type 'DFDL String Literal' and modify the remainder of the specification accordingly - Improve the description of DFDL entities to avoid confusion over the intended usage of raw byte values. - Clarify the standard sentence about forward references in DFDL expressions - the current text implied that the restrictions only applied to the unparser. 1.1 DFDL Properties Properties on DFDL annotations may be one or more of the following types · DFDL string literal The property value is a string that represents describes a sequence of literal bytes and or characters which appear in the data stream. · List of DFDL string literals The property value is a space-separated list of DFDL string literals. When parsing, if more than one string literal in the list matches the portion of the data stream being evaluated then the longest matching string literal in the list must be used. When unparsing, the first string literal in the list must be used. · DFDL expression The property value is an XPath 2.0 expression that calculates evaluates to returns a value derived from other property values and/or from the DFDL infoset. DFDL expressions can be used to calculate property values, and to calculate logical values for simple elements. · DFDL regular expression The property value is a regular expression that can be used as a pattern to calculate the length of an element by comparing applying that pattern to the sequence of literal bytes or characters which appear in the data stream. · Enum The property value is a string literal that must be one of the allowed values listed in the property description. · QName The property value is a string literal that also conforms to an XML Qualified Name as specified in “Namespaces in XML “ · Simple Type The property value is a string that describes a logical value. The type of the logical value is one of the XML Schema simple types in the DFDL allowed subset. 1.1.1.1 DFDL Entities in String Literals 1.1.1.1 Character classes in DFDL String literals 1.1.1.1 Raw byte values in DFDL String Literals 4. using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding Not discussed textStringPadCharacter DFDL String literal The padding character or byte value that is used when justifying or trimming text elements. A pad character can be specified using DFDL entities. A pad byte value must be specified using the %#r entity. DFDL validation rules - if a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then the encoding must be a fixed-width encoding. - if a pad character is specified when lengthUnits='bytes' then the pad character must be a single-byte character. If a pad byte value is specified when lengthUnits='characters' then padding and trimming must be applied using an array of N pad byte values, where N is the width of a character in the fixed-width encoding. Annotation: dfdl:element, dfdl:simpleType Would adding fillByte to dfdl:padChar enumeration make it clearer. padChar is a pad character (%#r not allowed) fillByte is a fill byte 5. nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties These properties seem a bit of an anomaly. Tim has suggested they can be simplified. Not discussed 6 Remove timing from dfdl:assert. As timing property has been removed from discriminators it is inconsistent to still have it on assert. Agreed There was also a discussion about adding a message property to discriminators which was inconclusive so decided not to change. 7. Splitting the specification in simpler sections. Concern has been raised that a full DFDL implementation is complicated and expensive. A number of reviewer have said that they might implement only part of the sepcification. It has been suggested that the WG should look to see if it possible to split the specification into more manageable optional sections. Meeting closed, 17:00 Next call Wednesday 07 July 2010 15:00 UK (10:00 ET) Next action: 100 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. Current Actions: No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 04/12: no update ... 17/02: IBM is willing in principle to publish the test case format and some of the test cases. May need some time to build a 'compliance suite' 24/03: No progress 03/03: Discussions have been taking place on the subset of tests that will be provided. 10/03: work is progressing 17/03: work is progressing 31/03: work is progressing 14/04: And XML test case format has been defined and is being tested. 21/04. Schema for TDML defined. Need to define how this and the test cases will be made public 05/05: Work still progressing 12/05: Work still progressing 02/06: Work still progressing on technical and legal considerations 16/06: work continues 23/06: work continues 30/06: work continues 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 21/04: Press release, OMG and other standards bodies. 05/05: Alan and Steve H have contacted other standards bodies. Will ask them to add comments on spec 15/05: still no public comments 02/06: No public comments 16/06: Public comments period has ended with no external comments. Alan had posted changes made in draft 041. Steve suggested send a note to the WG highlighting these changes. Steve also suggested requesting an extension as other IBM groups may review. We discussed whether this was necessary as changes will need to be made during the implementation phase anyway. Alan to ask OGF what the process is for changes post public comment. 23/06: Still no comments. Alan will contact OGF to understand the rest of the process. 30/06: Alan has emailed Joel asking what the process is now public comment period is over andcan we update the published version with WG updates. No response yet. 086 AP: Nils and Defaults during unparsing - update table 31/03: TK to documetn use cases for parsing 14/04: Investigate new property to control empty string behaviour. 21/04: After investigation a new property is not required. New rules developed and tables updated. Need examples of complexTypes to confirm tables apply. Review Nils, defaulting spec section. 05/05: Discussed defaulting complex elements. Tables updated but need to add terminator. SH; to confirm WMD behaviour when infoset item has no value on unparsing Need to describe defaulting choices. 15/05: More discussion. Alan updating sections 26/05: Discussed draft updates. Stephanie to confirm asserts do not make an element required. Alan will update draft.. All: review rest of draft. 02/06: Alan updated description. Please review. Discussed Stephanie's example using discriminators. Decided no changes needed. 16/05: went through Steves comments. Steve to update draft. 23/06: Steve's updates to the rules discussed. See minutes. Rest of document needs updating. 30/06: Discussed Alans updates. Some corrections. Alan will send out updated copy for review before next call. 088 define semantics of choiceKind 'fixedLength' 31/03: TK to provide definition of calculable length. Investigate PL/I varchars and Cobol occurs dependingon. 14/04Tim had distributed a document starting the definition of calculable length for the longest choice member. Alan had done some investigation of COBOL occurs depending on and when used in the working section of a program then the maximum storage was reserved but when used in the linkage section the dependent number was uses. We need to understand how the WMB COBOL importer deals with ODO. 21/04: Need to define 'calculable length' and WMB importer ODO behaviour. 05/05: TK: Still need definition of calculable length. SKK: WMB COBOL imported behaviour with ODO 15/05: Suman sent an expmle of an imported Cobol ODo which suggested that the maximum space was reserved. He will extend the example. 02/06: no progress 16/06: no progress 23/06: no progress 30/06: Alan looked at Tim's description of calculable length and suggested that that real use case may be much simpler. If real use case is COBOL and C importers then it would be cleaner to require the 'fixed length' to be specified on the enclosing complex element and remove choiceKind 'fixed length'. Ask Suman is COBOL and C importers can be enhance to provide length on cpmplex element. 092 AP: Confirm behaviour of defaulting with various occursCountKinds and separator policies. 16/06: no progress 23/06: discussed - whether when number of instances doesn't match specified number of occurrences is it an error or should missing instances be defaulted? Decided it is an error. - defaulting occurs up to minoccurs unless separator policy is required when default up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 30/06: Decided that defaulting for variable occurrence arrays should always be to minOccurs. If separatorPolicy is 'required' then just the separators will be output up to maxOccurs and unbounded is an error. 096 AP: using textStringPadCharacter with charRef '%#r' on multi-byte encoding 097 nilIndicatorPath and nilIndicatorIndex properties 099 Splitting the specification in simpler sections. Closed actions No Action 098 Remove timing from dfdl:assert Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 070 Write DFDL primer 071 Write test cases. 083 Implement RFC2116 105 AP: Describe trailingSkipBytes for delimited formats. Alan suggested 'dfdl:terminator must be specified and not empty if dfdl:lengthKind is delimited or endOfParent.' 106 AP: Skip Bytes should allow bits Ageed that it should be possible to specify bits. - LSB and TSB renames to dfdl:leadingSkip, dfdl:trailingSkip - units are specified by dfdl:alignmentUnits. 107 Remove timing from dfdl:assert 108 Regards Alan Powell Development - MQSeries, Message Broker, ESB IBM Software Group, Application and Integration Middleware Software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM MP211, Hursley Park Hursley, SO21 2JN United Kingdom Phone: +44-1962-815073 e-mail: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com 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 http://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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