
Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group OGF DFDL Working Group Call, April 14-2010 Attendees Steve Hanson (IBM) Alan Powell (IBM) Steve Marting (Progeny) Stephanie Fetzer (IBM) Suman Kalia (IBM) Tim Kimber(IBM) Apologies Mike Beckerle (Oco) 1. DFDL Specification status After a slight delay the DFDL v1 Specification was opened to public comment on April 15th until June 15th. There was some discussion about publicizing the review. Steve H mentioned he started the process for getting approval for IBM to be included in a press release. Steve M indicated that Progeny may also be willing. Steve M mentioned that Progeny were working on an OMG mediation framework that requires DFDL and theat Progeny will have at least a partial implementation of DFDL that may satisfy the OGF requirement. 2 Nils, defaults and unparsing Tim had distributed some uses cases of fixed and delimited formats with initiated and non-initaited element. The was considerable discussion of the initiated, delimited cases ONE:one,THREE:three<END> ONE:one,,THREE:three<END> The discussion was mainly about whether was any difference in intent between missing and zero length in these examples and whether zero length string or default should be inserted into the infoset, Tim suggested using separatorPolicy required as a trigger. Alan pointed out that the table in the spec used the presence or absence of a default value to decide is the default or empty string should be the result. Eventually concluded that an additional property may be needed and a proposal will be developed. In addition it was noted that the interaction between dfdl:initiatedContent and dfdl:missingValueInitiatorPoilcy may need clarifying. It was also question whether XSDL allows the empty space to be specified as a default value. 3 dfdl:separatorPoilicy. The main discussion was about how to detect when complex types should be defaulted which was similar to the defaulting discussion for simpleTypes. The added complication for complex types is that the content region is the children so should you detect missing by parsing the first child? It was agreed that examples simpler to the ones above would be helpful. Meeting closed, 14:45 Next call Wednesday 21 April January 2010 13:00 UK (8:00 ET) Next action: 091 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. 084 Check behaviour of dfdl:inputValueCalc and outputValueCalc. 14/04: no prorgess 085 ALL: publicize Public comments phase to ensure a good review.. 14/04: see minutes 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. 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. 089 Need to be able to define unsigned decimal and integer 31/03: MB to agree proposed solution 14/04: MB to agree proposed solution 090 Semantics of separatorPolicy 14/04: Discussion on detecting when complex types should be defaulted. Examples needed. Closed actions No Action 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 097 Remove functions that returns duration 098 occursCountKind is parsing only 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@uk.ibm.com Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. 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