Suppose I have <dfdl:defineFormat name="myFormat"> <dfdl:format byteOrder="{../bOrder }"/> </dfdl:defineFormat> <dfdl:format encoding="{ ../enc }"/> Is that immediately nonsense, since ../bOrder isn't meaningful at top level where formats are defined? What about ../enc - evaluated at top level or when the encoding property is needed? I.e., I use this format down inside my schema ....<element ref="myElement" dfdl:ref="myFormat"/> Does the relative path ../bOrder get executed relative to myElement? My initial thought was that relative paths aren't usable in top-level definitions, but if that's the case then escapeScheme's, which can only be defined at top level currently, would not have any way to take advantage of the runtime-expression capabilites of escapeChar, escapeEscapeChar, etc. ...mike -- Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | www.tresys.com