- dfdl-wg - lists.ogf.org

Re: [DFDL-WG] dfdl-wg Digest, Vol 40, Issue 6
by Tim Kimber 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

A minor addition under 2. - The precise meaning of lengthKind="endOfParent" was discussed. Is it, in fact, no more than an alias for 'delimited' ( a usefully descriptive one, admittedly )? 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: 07/12/2009 18:17 Subject: dfdl-wg Digest, Vol 40, Issue 6 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. Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, December-04-2009 (Alan Powell) ----- Message from Alan Powell <alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com> on Mon, 7 Dec 2009 18:17:03 +0000 ----- To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Subject: [DFDL-WG] Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, December-04-2009 Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, December-04-2009 Attendees Suman Kalia (IBM) Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Steve Marting (Progeny) Peter Lambros (IBM) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Apologies Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. 045 Resolving points of uncertainty - Disciminators Continued discussion of semantics of discriminators and arrays. Agreed that discriminator do apply to all points of uncertainty not just choices. Further discussion on applying to arrays. It was suggested that discriminators on a repeating element resolves just that existence of the element not the existence of the array. We need a fully worked proposal to progress. 2. Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Tim pointed out an inconsistency between the terminators and separators even though they are very similar. The last terminator can be missing if dfdl:finalTerminatorCanBeMissing is set. The last separator is optional for dfdl:separatorPolicy='postfix' Proposal: - Last 'postFix' separator is not optional - Terminators are mandatory. - A new property allows the final terminator or separator to be missing. FinalDelimiterCanBeMissing was suggested. Or define a new entity '%#EoD' end of data which could be used as an alternative terminator/separator. Further discussion is needed. Action raised 3. 045 - parsing rules for determining length It was agreed that escaping is enabled by dfdl:escapeSchemeRef irrespective of dfdl:lengthKind. 4. Arrays >From Steve H email Further discussion on array processing: 4) occursCountKind="expression". Is it a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression? Agreed: it is a processing error. 5) occursCountKind="useAvailableSpace". On unparsing, unused space should be padded with dfdl:fillByte (added below). But if the number in the infoset is a lot less than the box can hold, how do you know when re-parsing how many are in the box? Also, if we are trying to fit things into a box, does it matter if items are left over? I suggested this was an error below. Need Mike's input as he has seen the use cases for this. Needs more discussion 6) Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". Agreed 5. Does the parser/serializer have to start on a global element? Discussed whether it should be possible to start the DFDL processor at any element within a schema rt=ather than just a global element. This would be helpful for tooling to, for example, create examples data for parts of the schema. It was also noted that it would be helpful to tooling, especially importers, if the global elements that could be roots of messages where known. This had been discussed during scoping discussions. ACTION It was also questioned whether the SCD syntax was usable as an external root designator. 6. Go through remaining actions Updated below 7. Test suite for DFDL IBM still investigating if its test case format can be made public. 8. Plan to finish DFDL v1 Draft 037 will be available today or Monday Alan has received a document defining the OGF approval process. There are two stages 1. to bring a document to proposed recommendation 2. At least 6 months later, to bring it to approved recommendation. The schedule will be updated with both stages and when new drafts will be available. Updated straw man schedule Activity Schedule Who Resolve Action items - 23 Nov 2009 WG Write up work items 16 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP Restructure and complete specification 23 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP WG review 7 Dec - 18 Dec 2009 WG Incorporate review comments 4 Jan - 29 Jan 2010 AP + OGF Editor Review / Incorporate changes 1 Feb - 1 Mar 2010 OGF OGF Public Comment period (60 days) 1 Mar - 30 Apr 2010 OGF OGF 28 Munich 15-19 March 2010 Meeting closed, 15:30 Next call 09 December 13:00 UK Next action: 071 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 068 Should the roots of messages be designated.? 069 Is the SCD syntax usable as a DFDL external. 070 Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Current Actions: No Action 037 All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks that police model ambiguity. And even re-jigging the model sometimes fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL may have to adopt the position that: a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact checks tbd) b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for all DFDL models c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML Schema 1.0) Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 27/05: No Progress 03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation that describes issue and best practice. 17/06: no change 24/06: no change 01/07: no progress ... 12/08: No Progress (lower priority) 19/08: Clarify that this action is to go through the XML UPA checks to assess impact on dfdl schemas and advice best practice. Name clashes is just one example. SH or SKK 26/08: No Progress (lower priority) 09/09: no progress ... 04/11: no progress 11/11: Steve has started to look at this. He has requested a 'consumable' definition of the UPA rules from the XSD WG members. Even non-normative Appendix H in the XSD 1.0 spec is hard to consume. 18/11: no update 25/11: Steve H has not found simpler definition so may just go through them. 04/12: Steve has received a simpler description from S Gao and will go though each check. 045 20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 09/06: Progress but not discussed 17/06: Discussed briefly 24/06: No Progress 01/07: No Progress 15/07: No progress. MB not happy with the way the algorithm is documented, need to find a better way. 29/07: No Progress 05/08: No Progress. Will document behaviour as a set of rules. 12/08: No Progress ... 16/09: no progress 30/09: AP distributed proposal and others commented. Brief discussion AP to incorporate update and reissue 07/10: Updated proposal was discussed.Comments will be incorporated into the next version. 14/10: Alan to update proposal to include array scenario where minOccurs > 0 21/10: Updated proposal reviewed 28/10: Updated proposal reviewed see minutes 04/11: Discussed semantics of disciminators on arrays. MB to produce examples 11/11: Absorbing action 033 into 045. Maybe decorated discrminator kinds are needed after all. MB and SF to continue with examples. 18/11: Went through WTX implementation of example. SF to gather more documentation about WTX discriminator rules. 25/11: Further discussion. Will get more WTX documentation. Need to confirm that no changes need to Resolving Uncertainty doc. 04/11: Further discussion about arrays. 049 20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 03/06: not discussed 24/06: No Progress 24/06: No Progress (hope to get these from test cases) 15/07: No progress. Once available, the examples in the spec should use the dfdl:defineFormat annotations they provide. ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Discussed the real need for this being in the specification. It seemed that the main value is it define a schema location for downloading 'known' defaults from the web. 28/10: no progress 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: Agreed to try to produce for CSV and fixed formats 04/12: no update 056 MB Resolve lengthUnits=bits including fillbytes 12/08: No Progress ... 28/10: no progress 04/11: MB to look at lengthUnits = bits 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: no update. ALan will set up a separate call to progress this action. 064 MB/SH Request WG presentation at OGF 28 25/11: Session requested 04/12: no update 065 Resolve parsing rules for various lengthKinds 25/11: Agreed dfdl:lengthKind define how to extract the data. Didn'r t discuss if this changes escaping. 04/12: Closed 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 068 Should the roots of messages be designated.? 069 Is the SCD syntax usable as a DFDL external. 070 Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Closed actions No Action 012 AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 10/9: Not allocated yet 17/9: No update 24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 22/10: No progress 16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 21/1: add locale, 04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 08/04: Not discussed 22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is understood. 29/04: No progress 06/05: No progress 13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few details to clarify. 20/05: No Progress ... 09/06: No Progress (low priority) 17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 24/06: no progress ... 12/08: no progress 19/08: Inconsistencies are being found in ICU behaviour so Calendars need reviewing again. 26/08: Specific three character short time zones may not be maintained during round tripping when there is more than one short form for a time zone offset. Because dates and datetimes in the infoset only maintain a time zone offset so on unparsing it isn't possible to say which short form will be selected for a particular offset when there is more than one possible. Need to document. 09/09: no progress ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Will produce a list of known issues. 28/10: Discussed ICU farctional seconds behaviour. SF to send latest understanding. 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: Steve and Alan have been through the known problems. One issue is how many digits fractional second should support. ICU only supports milliseconds but allows up to 6 S pattern characters to be specified. DFDL will follow this approach but will document the behaviour of rounding etc... Closed 063 Write DFDL primer and test cases. 11/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: Should become a work item 067 25/11:Investigate problem tracking tools. 04/12: Agreed to use the gridforge Tracker tool. Closed Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 011 How speculative parsing works (combining choice and variable-occurence - currently these are separate) (from action 045) awaiting completion of actions 045 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 033 Numeric data - what physical reps are allowed for what logical types (from action 020) 037 done 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 038 Improve length section including bit handling some improvement in 036 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 051 Revised scoping rules (from action 051) 037 done 058 textPadCharacter %#rxx limitation and split to textxxxxPadCharacter 037 done 059 limit terminatorCanBeMissing to last element in schema. Ignore elsewhere. 037 done 060 New empty string semantic for dfdl:binaryBooleanTrueRep 037 done 061 Change maxOccurs violations from processing error to validation error (if not 'fixed') 037 done 062 Drop calendarUseZForUTC. describe zU, IU and TU symbols 037 done 063 DefineFormat can contain only one active format. Drop baseFormat 037 done 064 Define how encoding, byteorder and floating point format externally 037 done 065 Refactor dfdl:textNumberFormat to remove dfdl:numberBase. 037 done 066 document scope of selectors 037 done 067 document floating evaluation order 037 done 068 change dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing done 069 ICU fractional seconds 070 Write DFDL primer 071 Write test cases. 072 it is a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression or prefix 073 Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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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Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, December-04-2009
by Alan Powell 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, December-04-2009 Attendees Suman Kalia (IBM) Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Steve Marting (Progeny) Peter Lambros (IBM) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Apologies Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. 045 Resolving points of uncertainty - Disciminators Continued discussion of semantics of discriminators and arrays. Agreed that discriminator do apply to all points of uncertainty not just choices. Further discussion on applying to arrays. It was suggested that discriminators on a repeating element resolves just that existence of the element not the existence of the array. We need a fully worked proposal to progress. 2. Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Tim pointed out an inconsistency between the terminators and separators even though they are very similar. The last terminator can be missing if dfdl:finalTerminatorCanBeMissing is set. The last separator is optional for dfdl:separatorPolicy='postfix' Proposal: - Last 'postFix' separator is not optional - Terminators are mandatory. - A new property allows the final terminator or separator to be missing. FinalDelimiterCanBeMissing was suggested. Or define a new entity '%#EoD' end of data which could be used as an alternative terminator/separator. Further discussion is needed. Action raised 3. 045 - parsing rules for determining length It was agreed that escaping is enabled by dfdl:escapeSchemeRef irrespective of dfdl:lengthKind. 4. Arrays >From Steve H email Further discussion on array processing: 4) occursCountKind="expression". Is it a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression? Agreed: it is a processing error. 5) occursCountKind="useAvailableSpace". On unparsing, unused space should be padded with dfdl:fillByte (added below). But if the number in the infoset is a lot less than the box can hold, how do you know when re-parsing how many are in the box? Also, if we are trying to fit things into a box, does it matter if items are left over? I suggested this was an error below. Need Mike's input as he has seen the use cases for this. Needs more discussion 6) Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". Agreed 5. Does the parser/serializer have to start on a global element? Discussed whether it should be possible to start the DFDL processor at any element within a schema rt=ather than just a global element. This would be helpful for tooling to, for example, create examples data for parts of the schema. It was also noted that it would be helpful to tooling, especially importers, if the global elements that could be roots of messages where known. This had been discussed during scoping discussions. ACTION It was also questioned whether the SCD syntax was usable as an external root designator. 6. Go through remaining actions Updated below 7. Test suite for DFDL IBM still investigating if its test case format can be made public. 8. Plan to finish DFDL v1 Draft 037 will be available today or Monday Alan has received a document defining the OGF approval process. There are two stages 1. to bring a document to proposed recommendation 2. At least 6 months later, to bring it to approved recommendation. The schedule will be updated with both stages and when new drafts will be available. Updated straw man schedule Activity Schedule Who Resolve Action items - 23 Nov 2009 WG Write up work items 16 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP Restructure and complete specification 23 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP WG review 7 Dec - 18 Dec 2009 WG Incorporate review comments 4 Jan - 29 Jan 2010 AP + OGF Editor Review / Incorporate changes 1 Feb - 1 Mar 2010 OGF OGF Public Comment period (60 days) 1 Mar - 30 Apr 2010 OGF OGF 28 Munich 15-19 March 2010 Meeting closed, 15:30 Next call 09 December 13:00 UK Next action: 071 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 068 Should the roots of messages be designated.? 069 Is the SCD syntax usable as a DFDL external. 070 Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Current Actions: No Action 037 All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks that police model ambiguity. And even re-jigging the model sometimes fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL may have to adopt the position that: a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact checks tbd) b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for all DFDL models c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML Schema 1.0) Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 27/05: No Progress 03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation that describes issue and best practice. 17/06: no change 24/06: no change 01/07: no progress ... 12/08: No Progress (lower priority) 19/08: Clarify that this action is to go through the XML UPA checks to assess impact on dfdl schemas and advice best practice. Name clashes is just one example. SH or SKK 26/08: No Progress (lower priority) 09/09: no progress ... 04/11: no progress 11/11: Steve has started to look at this. He has requested a 'consumable' definition of the UPA rules from the XSD WG members. Even non-normative Appendix H in the XSD 1.0 spec is hard to consume. 18/11: no update 25/11: Steve H has not found simpler definition so may just go through them. 04/12: Steve has received a simpler description from S Gao and will go though each check. 045 20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 09/06: Progress but not discussed 17/06: Discussed briefly 24/06: No Progress 01/07: No Progress 15/07: No progress. MB not happy with the way the algorithm is documented, need to find a better way. 29/07: No Progress 05/08: No Progress. Will document behaviour as a set of rules. 12/08: No Progress ... 16/09: no progress 30/09: AP distributed proposal and others commented. Brief discussion AP to incorporate update and reissue 07/10: Updated proposal was discussed.Comments will be incorporated into the next version. 14/10: Alan to update proposal to include array scenario where minOccurs > 0 21/10: Updated proposal reviewed 28/10: Updated proposal reviewed see minutes 04/11: Discussed semantics of disciminators on arrays. MB to produce examples 11/11: Absorbing action 033 into 045. Maybe decorated discrminator kinds are needed after all. MB and SF to continue with examples. 18/11: Went through WTX implementation of example. SF to gather more documentation about WTX discriminator rules. 25/11: Further discussion. Will get more WTX documentation. Need to confirm that no changes need to Resolving Uncertainty doc. 04/11: Further discussion about arrays. 049 20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 03/06: not discussed 24/06: No Progress 24/06: No Progress (hope to get these from test cases) 15/07: No progress. Once available, the examples in the spec should use the dfdl:defineFormat annotations they provide. ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Discussed the real need for this being in the specification. It seemed that the main value is it define a schema location for downloading 'known' defaults from the web. 28/10: no progress 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: Agreed to try to produce for CSV and fixed formats 04/12: no update 056 MB Resolve lengthUnits=bits including fillbytes 12/08: No Progress ... 28/10: no progress 04/11: MB to look at lengthUnits = bits 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: no update. ALan will set up a separate call to progress this action. 064 MB/SH Request WG presentation at OGF 28 25/11: Session requested 04/12: no update 065 Resolve parsing rules for various lengthKinds 25/11: Agreed dfdl:lengthKind define how to extract the data. Didn'r t discuss if this changes escaping. 04/12: Closed 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 068 Should the roots of messages be designated.? 069 Is the SCD syntax usable as a DFDL external. 070 Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Closed actions No Action 012 AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 10/9: Not allocated yet 17/9: No update 24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 22/10: No progress 16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 21/1: add locale, 04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 08/04: Not discussed 22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is understood. 29/04: No progress 06/05: No progress 13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few details to clarify. 20/05: No Progress ... 09/06: No Progress (low priority) 17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 24/06: no progress ... 12/08: no progress 19/08: Inconsistencies are being found in ICU behaviour so Calendars need reviewing again. 26/08: Specific three character short time zones may not be maintained during round tripping when there is more than one short form for a time zone offset. Because dates and datetimes in the infoset only maintain a time zone offset so on unparsing it isn't possible to say which short form will be selected for a particular offset when there is more than one possible. Need to document. 09/09: no progress ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Will produce a list of known issues. 28/10: Discussed ICU farctional seconds behaviour. SF to send latest understanding. 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: Steve and Alan have been through the known problems. One issue is how many digits fractional second should support. ICU only supports milliseconds but allows up to 6 S pattern characters to be specified. DFDL will follow this approach but will document the behaviour of rounding etc... Closed 063 Write DFDL primer and test cases. 11/11: no update 25/11: no update 04/12: Should become a work item 067 25/11:Investigate problem tracking tools. 04/12: Agreed to use the gridforge Tracker tool. Closed Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 011 How speculative parsing works (combining choice and variable-occurence - currently these are separate) (from action 045) awaiting completion of actions 045 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 033 Numeric data - what physical reps are allowed for what logical types (from action 020) 037 done 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 038 Improve length section including bit handling some improvement in 036 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 051 Revised scoping rules (from action 051) 037 done 058 textPadCharacter %#rxx limitation and split to textxxxxPadCharacter 037 done 059 limit terminatorCanBeMissing to last element in schema. Ignore elsewhere. 037 done 060 New empty string semantic for dfdl:binaryBooleanTrueRep 037 done 061 Change maxOccurs violations from processing error to validation error (if not 'fixed') 037 done 062 Drop calendarUseZForUTC. describe zU, IU and TU symbols 037 done 063 DefineFormat can contain only one active format. Drop baseFormat 037 done 064 Define how encoding, byteorder and floating point format externally 037 done 065 Refactor dfdl:textNumberFormat to remove dfdl:numberBase. 037 done 066 document scope of selectors 037 done 067 document floating evaluation order 037 done 068 change dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing done 069 ICU fractional seconds 070 Write DFDL primer 071 Write test cases. 072 it is a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression or prefix 073 Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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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DFDL V1 draft 037 available.
by Alan Powell 07 Dec '09

07 Dec '09

DFDL V1 draft 037 is available as ogf-dfdl-v1.0-Core-037.final.doc at https://forge.gridforum.org/sf/go/doc15833?nav=1 The most significant change is the definition of the new scoping rules. A summary of the changes is below. Version Author/Contributor History Date(yyyy-mm-dd) 037 Alan Powell Documented new scoping rules Added meaning of empty string for dfdl:binaryBooleanTrueRep Minor corrections Changed dfdl:textPadCharacter to dfdl:textxxxPadCharacter and clarified use of %#rxx; Changed 'logical data model' to 'infoset' throughout xs:maxOccurs violation is a validation error Removed calendarUseZForUTC Clarified selector scope Dfdl:defineFormat can only contain one dfdl:format. Dropped baseFormat. Defined order for resolving floating elements. Changed dfdl:length() function to dfdl:representationLength() Moved dfdl:textNumberBase from textNumberFormat. Other minor changes to textNumberFormat. Cannot have expression for dfdl:lengthKind Many commemts that have been fixed or no longer relevant have been deleted. Changed dfdl:binaryCalendarRepresentation to dfdl: binaryCalendarRep and binaryNumberRepresentation to binaryNumberRep to be consistent Added table for logical type mapping to representation Escaping now controlled solely by dfdl:escapeSchemeRef. Added dfdl: truncateKnownLengthString Improved section on lengths but not complete Added Mapping logical numbers to text representation and Mapping logical numbers to binary representation 2009-11-30 We will be formally tracking issues with this draft of the specification. Any issues, omissions or errors should be raised on the gridforge tracker for the project at https://forge.gridforum.org/sf/tracker/do/listArtifacts/projects.dfdl-wg/tr… Any minor issues such as spelling errors can be marked up in the document and sent to me. Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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 04 Decemberer 2009 - 13:30 UK (8:30 ET)
by Alan Powell 03 Dec '09

03 Dec '09

045 - Disciminators Resolve confusion from last call whether discriminator only apply to choices. Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Discussion postponed from last WG call 045 - parsing rules for determining length The last WG call agreed that dfdl:legnthKind determines if an item is scanned or not but we didn't discuss the effect on escaping. If is suggested that dfdl:escapeSchemeRef should control if escaping occurs for text fields independently from dfdl:lengthkind. This allows escaping even when data is not scanned Arrays >From Steve H email Further discussion on array processing: 4) occursCountKind="expression". Is it a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression? It was noted that the dfdl:outputValueCalc expression of a count field should use the dfdl:countWithDefault() function to ensure default values are taken into account. 5) occursCountKind="useAvailableSpace". On unparsing, unused space should be padded with dfdl:fillByte (added below). But if the number in the infoset is a lot less than the box can hold, how do you know when re-parsing how many are in the box? Also, if we are trying to fit things into a box, does it matter if items are left over? I suggested this was an error below. Need Mike's input as he has seen the use cases for this. 6) Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". 7) Noted that dfdl:separatorPolicy="suppress" and "suppressAtEnd" have the same behaviour for an array. Does the parser/serializer have to start on a global element? The spec says that one of the external parameters to the DFDL processor is a global element name to start from. Broker allows serialization of any subtree within a schema. Go through remaining actions Test suite for DFDL Discuss test case format. Plan to finish DFDL v1 Updated straw man schedule Activity Schedule Who Resolve Action items - 23 Nov 2009 WG Write up work items 16 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP Restructure and complete specification 23 Nov - 4 Dec 2009 AP WG review 7 Dec - 18 Dec 2009 WG Incorporate review comments 4 Jan - 29 Jan 2010 AP + OGF Editor Review / Incorporate changes 1 Feb - 1 Mar 2010 OGF OGF Public Comment period (60 days) 1 Mar - 30 Apr 2010 OGF OGF 28 Munich 15-19 March 2010 Current Actions: No Action 012 AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 10/9: Not allocated yet 17/9: No update 24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 22/10: No progress 16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 21/1: add locale, 04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 08/04: Not discussed 22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is understood. 29/04: No progress 06/05: No progress 13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few details to clarify. 20/05: No Progress ... 09/06: No Progress (low priority) 17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 24/06: no progress ... 12/08: no progress 19/08: Inconsistencies are being found in ICU behaviour so Calendars need reviewing again. 26/08: Specific three character short time zones may not be maintained during round tripping when there is more than one short form for a time zone offset. Because dates and datetimes in the infoset only maintain a time zone offset so on unparsing it isn't possible to say which short form will be selected for a particular offset when there is more than one possible. Need to document. 09/09: no progress ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Will produce a list of known issues. 28/10: Discussed ICU farctional seconds behaviour. SF to send latest understanding. 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 037 All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks that police model ambiguity. And even re-jigging the model sometimes fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL may have to adopt the position that: a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact checks tbd) b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for all DFDL models c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML Schema 1.0) Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 27/05: No Progress 03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation that describes issue and best practice. 17/06: no change 24/06: no change 01/07: no progress ... 12/08: No Progress (lower priority) 19/08: Clarify that this action is to go through the XML UPA checks to assess impact on dfdl schemas and advice best practice. Name clashes is just one example. SH or SKK 26/08: No Progress (lower priority) 09/09: no progress ... 04/11: no progress 11/11: Steve has started to look at this. He has requested a 'consumable' definition of the UPA rules from the XSD WG members. Even non-normative Appendix H in the XSD 1.0 spec is hard to consume. 18/11: no update 25/11: Steve H has not found simpler definition so may just go through them. 045 20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 09/06: Progress but not discussed 17/06: Discussed briefly 24/06: No Progress 01/07: No Progress 15/07: No progress. MB not happy with the way the algorithm is documented, need to find a better way. 29/07: No Progress 05/08: No Progress. Will document behaviour as a set of rules. 12/08: No Progress ... 16/09: no progress 30/09: AP distributed proposal and others commented. Brief discussion AP to incorporate update and reissue 07/10: Updated proposal was discussed.Comments will be incorporated into the next version. 14/10: Alan to update proposal to include array scenario where minOccurs > 0 21/10: Updated proposal reviewed 28/10: Updated proposal reviewed see minutes 04/11: Discussed semantics of disciminators on arrays. MB to produce examples 11/11: Absorbing action 033 into 045. Maybe decorated discrminator kinds are needed after all. MB and SF to continue with examples. 18/11: Went through WTX implementation of example. SF to gather more documentation about WTX discriminator rules. 25/11: Further discussion. Will get more WTX documentation. Need to confirm that no changes need to Resolving Uncertainty doc. 049 20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 03/06: not discussed 24/06: No Progress 24/06: No Progress (hope to get these from test cases) 15/07: No progress. Once available, the examples in the spec should use the dfdl:defineFormat annotations they provide. ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Discussed the real need for this being in the specification. It seemed that the main value is it define a schema location for downloading 'known' defaults from the web. 28/10: no progress 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: Agreed to try to produce for CSV and fixed formats 056 MB Resolve lengthUnits=bits including fillbytes 12/08: No Progress ... 28/10: no progress 04/11: MB to look at lengthUnits = bits 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 063 Write DFDL primer and test cases. 11/11: no update 25/11: no update 064 MB/SH Request WG presentation at OGF 28 25/11: Session requested 065 Resolve parsing rules for various lengthKinds 25/11: Agreed dfdl:lengthKind define how to extract the data. Didn'r t discuss if this changes escaping. 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 067 25/11:Investigate problem tracking tools. Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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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DFDL_WG Call rescheduled to Friday 4 December 13:30 UK
by Alan Powell 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Just in case the meeting reschedule notice has not worked for everybody: Due to the unavailability of a number of participants on Wednesday we have rescheduled the WG call to Friday in the hope that is more convenient. Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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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Rescheduled: OGF DFDL Working Group weekly call (4 Dec 13:30 GMT in DE2K09)
by Steve Hanson 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Rescheduled: OGF DFDL Working Group weekly call 04/12/2009 - (Repeats) Chair: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM Sent By: Steve_Hanson/UK/IBM%IBMGB Location: DE2K09 Steve_Hanson Steve Hanson has rescheduled this meeting. You have not yet responded. Repeats This entry repeats Required: Alan Powell/UK/IBM, mbeckerle(a)OCO-INC.COM, Peter Lambros/UK/IBM, Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM Optional: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dglick(a)dracorp.com, gary.sikora(a)progeny.net, Mark Tibbits/UK/IBM@IBMGB Participant Passcode: 8190865 Country Toll Numbers Freephone/Toll Free Number AUSTRIA 43-1-928-9652 BELGIUM 32-2-400-6791 0800-4-9612 DENMARK 45-7014-0237 FRANCE LYON: 33-4-26-69-12-74 080-511-3725 FRANCE MARSEILLE: 33-4-86-06-00-74 080-511-3725 FRANCE PARIS: 33-1-70-70-81-58 080-511-3725 GERMANY 49-69-2222-20363 0800-100-6504 IRELAND 353-1-247-7768 ITALY 39-02-3600-3648 800-985-679 LUXEMBOURG 352-27-000-1312 NETHERLANDS 31-20-713-2741 0800-020-3237 SPAIN 34-91-414-1542 800-099-667 SWEDEN 46-8-566-10-780 SWITZERLAND 41-44-580-3334 0800-000-516 UNITED KINGDOM BIRMINGHAM: 44-121-210-9014 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM GLASGOW: 44-141-202-3214 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM LEEDS: 44-113-301-2114 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM LONDON: 44-20-7019-0808 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM MANCHESTER: 44-161-601-1414 0800-279-9193 USA 866-505-4412

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Rescheduled: OGF DFDL Working Group weekly call (2 Dec 14:00 GMT in DE2K09)
by Steve Hanson 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Rescheduled: OGF DFDL Working Group weekly call 02/12/2009 - (Repeats) Chair: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM Sent By: Steve_Hanson/UK/IBM%IBMGB Location: DE2K09 Steve_Hanson Steve Hanson has rescheduled this meeting. You have not yet responded. Repeats This entry repeats Required: Alan Powell/UK/IBM, mbeckerle(a)OCO-INC.COM, Peter Lambros/UK/IBM, Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA, Tim Kimber/UK/IBM Optional: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org, dglick(a)dracorp.com, gary.sikora(a)progeny.net, Mark Tibbits/UK/IBM@IBMGB Participant Passcode: 8190865 Country Toll Numbers Freephone/Toll Free Number AUSTRIA 43-1-928-9652 BELGIUM 32-2-400-6791 0800-4-9612 DENMARK 45-7014-0237 FRANCE LYON: 33-4-26-69-12-74 080-511-3725 FRANCE MARSEILLE: 33-4-86-06-00-74 080-511-3725 FRANCE PARIS: 33-1-70-70-81-58 080-511-3725 GERMANY 49-69-2222-20363 0800-100-6504 IRELAND 353-1-247-7768 ITALY 39-02-3600-3648 800-985-679 LUXEMBOURG 352-27-000-1312 NETHERLANDS 31-20-713-2741 0800-020-3237 SPAIN 34-91-414-1542 800-099-667 SWEDEN 46-8-566-10-780 SWITZERLAND 41-44-580-3334 0800-000-516 UNITED KINGDOM BIRMINGHAM: 44-121-210-9014 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM GLASGOW: 44-141-202-3214 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM LEEDS: 44-113-301-2114 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM LONDON: 44-20-7019-0808 0800-279-9193 UNITED KINGDOM MANCHESTER: 44-161-601-1414 0800-279-9193 USA 866-505-4412

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Array clarifications (was Fw: Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009)
by Steve Hanson 30 Nov '09

30 Nov '09

Discussed points 1-3 with Alan. 1) Alan thinks we didn't decide to limit discrimnators to choices - specifically that the optional scenario needs it. Steve thought this was just handled by speculative parsing, and that we limited discriminators to choices to simplify things for 1.0. More discussion needed in WG. 2) The minuted definition of dfdl:separatotPolicy="required" is in fact correct - it causes the parser to expect maxOccurs separators, and the unparser to output maxOccurs separators. Otherwise it is not possible for dfdl:occursCountKind="parsed" to handle extra separators that are included to make parsing unambiguous. Combination "required" and maxOccurs="unbounded" is therefore an error. Keeps the rule simple, but you can end up with some slightly odd combinations (eg, "required" plus stop value is possible). 3) A correction is needed to my revised dfdl:occursCountKind description, due to work item 061. 061 Change maxOccurs violations from processing error to validation error (if not 'fixed') 037 --------------------------------------------------------- Further discussion on array processing: 4) occursCountKind="expression". Is it a processing error if the number of occurrences in the data does not match the value of the expression? It was noted that the dfdl:outputValueCalc expression of a count field should use the dfdl:countWithDefault() function to ensure default values are taken into account. 5) occursCountKind="useAvailableSpace". On unparsing, unused space should be padded with dfdl:fillByte (added below). But if the number in the infoset is a lot less than the box can hold, how do you know when re-parsing how many are in the box? Also, if we are trying to fit things into a box, does it matter if items are left over? I suggested this was an error below. Need Mike's input as he has seen the use cases for this. 6) Rename dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" to "always". 7) Noted that dfdl:separatorPolicy="suppress" and "suppressAtEnd" have the same behaviour for an array. Regards Steve Hanson Programming Model Architect, WebSphere Message Brokers, OGF DFDL WG Co-Chair, Hursley, UK, Internet: smh(a)uk.ibm.com, Phone (+44)/(0) 1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 30/11/2009 10:02 ----- From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 27/11/2009 09:41 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009 Three things: 1) I thought we had decided to limit dfdl:discriminator to choices? Apologies if I didn't keep up with the discussion. 2) I don't think we got the rules right for dfdl:separatorPolicy="required" and arrays. Yes, separators must be output for all items, but 'all' depends on dfdl:occursCountKind and not just maxOccurs. In fact, the only time that maxOccurs has significance when parsing/unparsing is when dfdl:occursCountKind="fixed" - and in that case maxOccurs can not be unbounded. It should therefore not be a schema definition error when maxOccurs="unbounded" & dfdl:separatorPolicy="required". occursCountKind Enum Specifies how the actual number of occurrences is to be established. Valid values 'fixed', ‘expression’, 'parsed’ ,‘stopValue’ or ‘useAvailableSpace’ ‘fixed’ means use the value of the maxOccurs on the declaration. It is a schema definition error if the value for minOccurs is not equal to maxOccurs. ‘expression’ means use the value of the dfdl:occursCount property. 'parsed' means that the number of occurences is determined by normal speculative parsing such as discriminating by the initiator. ‘useAvailableSpace’ means the occurrences fill the available space which is limited by a containing construct. ‘stopValue’ means look for a logical stop value which signifies the end of the occurrences. Annotation: dfdl:element 3) I think the dfdl:occursCountKind entry needs beefing up to address explicitly the parsing and unparsing behaviour for each enum. I know some of this stuff is elsewhere but I think it should also be here for clarity. Here's my first pass. I have highlighted where I'd like WG clarification. occursCountKind Enum Specifies how the actual number of occurrences is to be established. Valid values 'fixed', ‘expression’, 'parsed’ ,‘stopValue’ or ‘useAvailableSpace’ ‘fixed’. Use the value of maxOccurs on the element declaration. It is a schema definition error if the value for minOccurs is not equal to maxOccurs. On parsing, maxOccurs are expected. On unparsing, maxOccurs are output. ‘expression’ means use the value of the dfdl:occursCount property. On parsing, dfdl:occursCount are expected. On unparsing, dfdl:occursCount are output. 'parsed' means that the number of occurences is determined by the data itself. On parsing, this is established using normal speculative parsing such as discriminating by the initiator. On unparsing, all infoset items are output. ‘useAvailableSpace’ means the occurrences fill the available space which is limited by a containing construct. On parsing, this is established using normal parsing rules. On unparsing, infoset items are output until the available space is exhausted or no items remain. Any unfilled space is filled with the dfdl:fillByte property value. ‘stopValue’ means use the value(s) of the dfdl:occursStopValue property. On parsing, look for a logical stop value which signifies the end of the occurrences. On unparsing, all infoset items are output followed by a logical stop value. The stop value does not appear in the infoset, and does not contribute to the occurrences count. On parsing and unparsing, after default rules are applied, it is a processing error (if 'fixed') or a validation error (otherwise) if the number of occurrences does not lie between minOccurs and maxOccurs inclusive. On unparsing, it is a processing error if items remain in the infoset after the designated occurrences have been output. Annotation: dfdl:element Regards Steve Hanson Programming Model Architect, WebSphere Message Brokers, OGF DFDL WG Co-Chair, Hursley, UK, Internet: smh(a)uk.ibm.com, Phone (+44)/(0) 1962-815848 From: Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: dfdl-wg(a)ogf.org Date: 26/11/2009 16:59 Subject: [DFDL-WG] Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009 Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces(a)ogf.org Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009 Attendees Suman Kalia (IBM) Steve Hanson (IBM) Mike Beckerle (Oco) Alan Powell (IBM) Steve Marting (Progeny) Peter Lambros (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Apologies Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) 1. 045 Resolving points of uncertainty - Disciminators Continued discussion of semantics of discriminators and arrays. Briefly reviewed Alan's update of the example to show discriminators only propagating to their parent. Flet that following WTX example was the best approach. IBM will more fully document WTX behaviour. Discussed whether discriminators should only resolve choices but decided against as they are valuable to, for example, find an optional element that subsequently has a parsing error. Also discussed that discriminators should only resolve the element they are defined on and whether that meant paths were not needed. Decided paths were needed for other purposes anyway. Alan noted that the order of evaluation had not been defined for floating elements. Agreed this should be - the element in that position - followed by the floating elements in the order they are defined in the schema. 2. 045 - parsing rules for determining length Discussed Tim's suggestion that dfdl:lengthKind alone should indicate how an item is extracted from the data explicit The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by dfdl:length ( which may be a DFDL expression, and may resolve to the value of the previous sibling ) prefixed The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by the prefix length. Note the similarity with the DFDL expression scenario above. implicit The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by the implicit length of the element. delimited The parser extracts from the input document all characters between the current buffer position and the next unescaped item of in-scope terminating markup. pattern The parser extracts from the input document all characters which match the specified pattern endOfParent. The parser extracts from the input document all remaining characters/bytes allowed by the representation properties of its parent groups/elements. The terminating markup is only scanned for when lengtkind is 'delimited' and 'EndOfParent' when the end of the parent is delineated by markup. This means that for formats such as the Swift 52A segment that distinguishes fields according to the length of data found, the lengthKind is delimited rather than explicit and a dfdl:assert is needed to test the length. dfdl:length is only examined when dfdl:lengthKind is explicit. It was agreed to change the function names of dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing to avoid confusion with the XPATH length. function. Didn't discuss if this changes escaping rules. 3. SeparatorPolicy=require and defaulting arrays and sequences Discussed the semantics of dfdl:separatorPolicy with variable length arrays. Agreed that the behaviour should be the same for arrays as for sequences. 'supressAtEnd' - separators must be output up to the last required item. That is up to the xs:minOccurs of a variable array. For simple items a default value will be output for missing required items. 'required' - separators must be output for all items. That is up to xs:maxOccurs. It is a schema definition error if required and xs:maxOccurs= unbounded is specified. 'supress' - separators are not output for missing items but for arrays there are no missing items so this is the same as dfdl:supressAtEnd. Note: a group is always 'required' so at least one member must be present. However a group could be wrapped in an element which could be optional. 4. Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Agreed to postpone to next call due to lack of time. 5. Go through remaining actions Updated below 6. Test suite for DFDL DFDL will be much more usable if it is accompanied by a set of tests that provide dfdl schema, sample data and expected results. IBM will investigate whether it will be possible to publish the format of the test cases that it is developing. 7. OGF28 Call for papers Steve H has sent a request for a slot in the agenda 8. Plan to finish DFDL v1 MB agreed to investigate the tool available on gridforge for tracking problems with the spec. Agreed to start using this after version 37. Meeting closed, 15:10 Next call 02 December 13:00 UK Next action: 068 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 067 Investigate problem tracking tools. Current Actions: No Action 012 AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 10/9: Not allocated yet 17/9: No update 24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 22/10: No progress 16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 21/1: add locale, 04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 08/04: Not discussed 22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is understood. 29/04: No progress 06/05: No progress 13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few details to clarify. 20/05: No Progress ... 09/06: No Progress (low priority) 17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 24/06: no progress ... 12/08: no progress 19/08: Inconsistencies are being found in ICU behaviour so Calendars need reviewing again. 26/08: Specific three character short time zones may not be maintained during round tripping when there is more than one short form for a time zone offset. Because dates and datetimes in the infoset only maintain a time zone offset so on unparsing it isn't possible to say which short form will be selected for a particular offset when there is more than one possible. Need to document. 09/09: no progress ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Will produce a list of known issues. 28/10: Discussed ICU farctional seconds behaviour. SF to send latest understanding. 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 037 All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks that police model ambiguity. And even re-jigging the model sometimes fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL may have to adopt the position that: a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact checks tbd) b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for all DFDL models c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML Schema 1.0) Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 27/05: No Progress 03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation that describes issue and best practice. 17/06: no change 24/06: no change 01/07: no progress ... 12/08: No Progress (lower priority) 19/08: Clarify that this action is to go through the XML UPA checks to assess impact on dfdl schemas and advice best practice. Name clashes is just one example. SH or SKK 26/08: No Progress (lower priority) 09/09: no progress ... 04/11: no progress 11/11: Steve has started to look at this. He has requested a 'consumable' definition of the UPA rules from the XSD WG members. Even non-normative Appendix H in the XSD 1.0 spec is hard to consume. 18/11: no update 25/11: Steve H has not found simpler definition so may just go through them. 045 20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 09/06: Progress but not discussed 17/06: Discussed briefly 24/06: No Progress 01/07: No Progress 15/07: No progress. MB not happy with the way the algorithm is documented, need to find a better way. 29/07: No Progress 05/08: No Progress. Will document behaviour as a set of rules. 12/08: No Progress ... 16/09: no progress 30/09: AP distributed proposal and others commented. Brief discussion AP to incorporate update and reissue 07/10: Updated proposal was discussed.Comments will be incorporated into the next version. 14/10: Alan to update proposal to include array scenario where minOccurs > 0 21/10: Updated proposal reviewed 28/10: Updated proposal reviewed see minutes 04/11: Discussed semantics of disciminators on arrays. MB to produce examples 11/11: Absorbing action 033 into 045. Maybe decorated discrminator kinds are needed after all. MB and SF to continue with examples. 18/11: Went through WTX implementation of example. SF to gather more documentation about WTX discriminator rules. 25/11: Further discussion. Will get more WTX documentation. Need to confirm that no changes need to Resolving Uncertainty doc. 049 20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 03/06: not discussed 24/06: No Progress 24/06: No Progress (hope to get these from test cases) 15/07: No progress. Once available, the examples in the spec should use the dfdl:defineFormat annotations they provide. ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Discussed the real need for this being in the specification. It seemed that the main value is it define a schema location for downloading 'known' defaults from the web. 28/10: no progress 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: Agreed to try to produce for CSV and fixed formats 056 MB Resolve lengthUnits=bits including fillbytes 12/08: No Progress ... 28/10: no progress 04/11: MB to look at lengthUnits = bits 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 063 Write DFDL primer and test cases. 11/11: no update 25/11: no update 064 MB/SH Request WG presentation at OGF 28 25/11: Session requested 065 Resolve parsing rules for various lengthKinds 25/11: Agreed dfdl:lengthKind define how to extract the data. Didn'r t discuss if this changes escaping. 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 067 25/11:Investigate problem tracking tools. Closed actions No Action Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 011 How speculative parsing works (combining choice and variable-occurence - currently these are separate) (from action 045) awaiting completion of actions 045 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 033 Numeric data - what physical reps are allowed for what logical types (from action 020) 037 ensure all behaviour documented 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 038 Improve length section including bit handling some improvement in 036 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 051 Revised scoping rules (from action 051) 037 058 textPadCharacter %#rxx limitation and split to textxxxxPadCharacter 037 059 limit terminatorCanBeMissing to last element in schema. Ignore elsewhere. 037 060 New empty string semantic for dfdl:binaryBooleanTrueRep 037 061 Change maxOccurs violations from processing error to validation error (if not 'fixed') 037 062 Drop calendarUseZForUTC. describe zU, IU and TU symbols 037 063 DefineFormat can contain only one active format. Drop baseFormat 037 064 Define how encoding, byteorder and floating point format externally 037 065 Refactor dfdl:textNumberFormat to remove dfdl:numberBase. 037 066 document scope of selectors 037 067 document floating evaluation order 037 068 change dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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 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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Using gridforge trackers for comments/corrections and formal feedback
by Mike Beckerle 27 Nov '09

27 Nov '09

I took the action item to examine the gridforge facilities for more formalizing public commentary and feedback. The complexity is that there are 4 mechanisms: "trackers", "tasks", "discussions", and "wiki". Another workgroup I used to participate in (DAIS) appears to have settled on trackers and limited wiki, and I'm not sure about the wiki part. Based on this I kicked off use of the trackers by creating one for us, and adding one item to track which is the lengthKind='bits' action item. Take a look here: http://forge.gridforum.org/sf/go/projects.dfdl-wg/tracker.specification_ver… There is richness here which would allow attachment of draft doc sections, test case files, etc. if needed. One can have many trackers - which are like master organizing categories of items to track. I am not sure it is helpful to have more than one overall containing "tracker". DAIS WG does have more than one, but I suggest we start with only one and add more only if necessary. The DFDL Wiki is hopelessly obsolete. I will delete the bogus content there so that it is at least not misleading.

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Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009
by Alan Powell 27 Nov '09

27 Nov '09

Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, November-25-2009 Attendees Suman Kalia (IBM) Steve Hanson (IBM) Mike Beckerle (Oco) Alan Powell (IBM) Steve Marting (Progeny) Peter Lambros (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Apologies Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) 1. 045 Resolving points of uncertainty - Disciminators Continued discussion of semantics of discriminators and arrays. Briefly reviewed Alan's update of the example to show discriminators only propagating to their parent. Flet that following WTX example was the best approach. IBM will more fully document WTX behaviour. Discussed whether discriminators should only resolve choices but decided against as they are valuable to, for example, find an optional element that subsequently has a parsing error. Also discussed that discriminators should only resolve the element they are defined on and whether that meant paths were not needed. Decided paths were needed for other purposes anyway. Alan noted that the order of evaluation had not been defined for floating elements. Agreed this should be - the element in that position - followed by the floating elements in the order they are defined in the schema. 2. 045 - parsing rules for determining length Discussed Tim's suggestion that dfdl:lengthKind alone should indicate how an item is extracted from the data explicit The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by dfdl:length ( which may be a DFDL expression, and may resolve to the value of the previous sibling ) prefixed The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by the prefix length. Note the similarity with the DFDL expression scenario above. implicit The parser extracts a fixed number of characters/bytes from the input document as directed by the implicit length of the element. delimited The parser extracts from the input document all characters between the current buffer position and the next unescaped item of in-scope terminating markup. pattern The parser extracts from the input document all characters which match the specified pattern endOfParent. The parser extracts from the input document all remaining characters/bytes allowed by the representation properties of its parent groups/elements. The terminating markup is only scanned for when lengtkind is 'delimited' and 'EndOfParent' when the end of the parent is delineated by markup. This means that for formats such as the Swift 52A segment that distinguishes fields according to the length of data found, the lengthKind is delimited rather than explicit and a dfdl:assert is needed to test the length. dfdl:length is only examined when dfdl:lengthKind is explicit. It was agreed to change the function names of dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing to avoid confusion with the XPATH length. function. Didn't discuss if this changes escaping rules. 3. SeparatorPolicy=require and defaulting arrays and sequences Discussed the semantics of dfdl:separatorPolicy with variable length arrays. Agreed that the behaviour should be the same for arrays as for sequences. 'supressAtEnd' - separators must be output up to the last required item. That is up to the xs:minOccurs of a variable array. For simple items a default value will be output for missing required items. 'required' - separators must be output for all items. That is up to xs:maxOccurs. It is a schema definition error if required and xs:maxOccurs= unbounded is specified. 'supress' - separators are not output for missing items but for arrays there are no missing items so this is the same as dfdl:supressAtEnd. Note: a group is always 'required' so at least one member must be present. However a group could be wrapped in an element which could be optional. 4. Clarification of postfix separators, terminators,finalTerminatorCanBeMissing Agreed to postpone to next call due to lack of time. 5. Go through remaining actions Updated below 6. Test suite for DFDL DFDL will be much more usable if it is accompanied by a set of tests that provide dfdl schema, sample data and expected results. IBM will investigate whether it will be possible to publish the format of the test cases that it is developing. 7. OGF28 Call for papers Steve H has sent a request for a slot in the agenda 8. Plan to finish DFDL v1 MB agreed to investigate the tool available on gridforge for tracking problems with the spec. Agreed to start using this after version 37. Meeting closed, 15:10 Next call 02 December 13:00 UK Next action: 068 Actions raised at this meeting No Action 066 Investigate format for defining test cases IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 067 Investigate problem tracking tools. Current Actions: No Action 012 AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 10/9: Not allocated yet 17/9: No update 24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 22/10: No progress 16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 21/1: add locale, 04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 08/04: Not discussed 22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is understood. 29/04: No progress 06/05: No progress 13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few details to clarify. 20/05: No Progress ... 09/06: No Progress (low priority) 17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 24/06: no progress ... 12/08: no progress 19/08: Inconsistencies are being found in ICU behaviour so Calendars need reviewing again. 26/08: Specific three character short time zones may not be maintained during round tripping when there is more than one short form for a time zone offset. Because dates and datetimes in the infoset only maintain a time zone offset so on unparsing it isn't possible to say which short form will be selected for a particular offset when there is more than one possible. Need to document. 09/09: no progress ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Will produce a list of known issues. 28/10: Discussed ICU farctional seconds behaviour. SF to send latest understanding. 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 037 All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks that police model ambiguity. And even re-jigging the model sometimes fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL may have to adopt the position that: a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact checks tbd) b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for all DFDL models c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML Schema 1.0) Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 27/05: No Progress 03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation that describes issue and best practice. 17/06: no change 24/06: no change 01/07: no progress ... 12/08: No Progress (lower priority) 19/08: Clarify that this action is to go through the XML UPA checks to assess impact on dfdl schemas and advice best practice. Name clashes is just one example. SH or SKK 26/08: No Progress (lower priority) 09/09: no progress ... 04/11: no progress 11/11: Steve has started to look at this. He has requested a 'consumable' definition of the UPA rules from the XSD WG members. Even non-normative Appendix H in the XSD 1.0 spec is hard to consume. 18/11: no update 25/11: Steve H has not found simpler definition so may just go through them. 045 20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 09/06: Progress but not discussed 17/06: Discussed briefly 24/06: No Progress 01/07: No Progress 15/07: No progress. MB not happy with the way the algorithm is documented, need to find a better way. 29/07: No Progress 05/08: No Progress. Will document behaviour as a set of rules. 12/08: No Progress ... 16/09: no progress 30/09: AP distributed proposal and others commented. Brief discussion AP to incorporate update and reissue 07/10: Updated proposal was discussed.Comments will be incorporated into the next version. 14/10: Alan to update proposal to include array scenario where minOccurs > 0 21/10: Updated proposal reviewed 28/10: Updated proposal reviewed see minutes 04/11: Discussed semantics of disciminators on arrays. MB to produce examples 11/11: Absorbing action 033 into 045. Maybe decorated discrminator kinds are needed after all. MB and SF to continue with examples. 18/11: Went through WTX implementation of example. SF to gather more documentation about WTX discriminator rules. 25/11: Further discussion. Will get more WTX documentation. Need to confirm that no changes need to Resolving Uncertainty doc. 049 20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 03/06: not discussed 24/06: No Progress 24/06: No Progress (hope to get these from test cases) 15/07: No progress. Once available, the examples in the spec should use the dfdl:defineFormat annotations they provide. ... 14/10: no progress 21/10: Discussed the real need for this being in the specification. It seemed that the main value is it define a schema location for downloading 'known' defaults from the web. 28/10: no progress 04/11: no progress 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: Agreed to try to produce for CSV and fixed formats 056 MB Resolve lengthUnits=bits including fillbytes 12/08: No Progress ... 28/10: no progress 04/11: MB to look at lengthUnits = bits 11/11: no update 18/11: no update 25/11: no update 063 Write DFDL primer and test cases. 11/11: no update 25/11: no update 064 MB/SH Request WG presentation at OGF 28 25/11: Session requested 065 Resolve parsing rules for various lengthKinds 25/11: Agreed dfdl:lengthKind define how to extract the data. Didn'r t discuss if this changes escaping. 066 Investigate format for defining test cases 25/11:IBM to see if it is possible to publish its test case format. 067 25/11:Investigate problem tracking tools. Closed actions No Action Work items: No Item target version status 005 Improvements on property descriptions not started 011 How speculative parsing works (combining choice and variable-occurence - currently these are separate) (from action 045) awaiting completion of actions 045 012 Reordering the properties discussion: move representation earlier, improve flow of topics not started 033 Numeric data - what physical reps are allowed for what logical types (from action 020) 037 ensure all behaviour documented 036 Update dfdl schema with change properties ongoing 038 Improve length section including bit handling some improvement in 036 042 Mapping of the DFDL infoset to XDM none not required for V1 specification 051 Revised scoping rules (from action 051) 037 058 textPadCharacter %#rxx limitation and split to textxxxxPadCharacter 037 059 limit terminatorCanBeMissing to last element in schema. Ignore elsewhere. 037 060 New empty string semantic for dfdl:binaryBooleanTrueRep 037 061 Change maxOccurs violations from processing error to validation error (if not 'fixed') 037 062 Drop calendarUseZForUTC. describe zU, IU and TU symbols 037 063 DefineFormat can contain only one active format. Drop baseFormat 037 064 Define how encoding, byteorder and floating point format externally 037 065 Refactor dfdl:textNumberFormat to remove dfdl:numberBase. 037 066 document scope of selectors 037 067 document floating evaluation order 037 068 change dfdl:length to dfdl:representationLength and dfdl:lengthWithoutPadding to RepresentationLengthWithoutParsing Alan Powell MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN, England Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email: alan_powell(a)uk.ibm.com Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073 Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898 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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