The DFDL approach will work for COBOL case but it would require wrapping the repeating element having such alignment requirement in a dummy sequence. Not very good from a logical model point of view but certainly will be consistent with other DFDL properties.. Suman Kalia IBM Canada Lab WMB Toolkit Architect and Development Lead Tel: 905-413-3923 T/L 313-3923 Email: kalia@ca.ibm.com For info on Message broker http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.ht... From: Steve Hanson <smh@uk.ibm.com> To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org, Date: 10/16/2012 04:18 AM Subject: [DFDL-WG] Spec: Leading skip applied to every repeat of a repeating element [s] Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org Need confirmation from the DFDL WG as to the purpose of the leadingSkip property. The grammar says that leadingSkip applies to all occurrences of an array element. Suman has indicated (below) that his intent for the property was to apply to the array as a whole. The DFDL approach for 'array as a whole' properties is to carry them on a wrapper sequence, not the element itself. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh@uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 ----- Forwarded by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM on 16/10/2012 09:02 ----- From: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Cc: Alex Wood1/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 15/10/2012 22:58 Subject: Re: [Work Item 9791] Spec: Leading skip applied to every repeat of a repeating element [s] I intended the behavior of leading and trailing skip counts for repeats to be same as in MRM. I can't say for sure if this would break anything in PL/1 as we have not implemented but certainly this behavior is required for COBOL.. We can discuss this in workgroup and if everyone agrees add it to Errata.. Suman Kalia IBM Canada Lab WMB Toolkit Architect and Development Lead Tel: 905-413-3923 T/L 313-3923 Email: kalia@ca.ibm.com For info on Message broker http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.ht... From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB To: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA, Cc: Alex Wood1/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 10/15/2012 01:24 PM Subject: Re: [Work Item 9791] Spec: Leading skip applied to every repeat of a repeating element [s] Does that mean in MRM that we have asymmetric behaviour between leadingSkip and trailingSkip ? I'm reading that for MRM leading skip was just for first element, but trailing skip is for every repeat. That's not how the DFDL grammar says things work - it applies leading skip to every repeat. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh@uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA To: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM@IBMGB Date: 15/10/2012 15:18 Subject: Re: [Work Item 9791] Spec: Leading skip applied to every repeat of a repeating element [s] I am travelling and offsite and cannot access the RTC.. Yes trailing skip count get applied to every repeating element.. this is the same semantic we have in MRM.. In COBOL terms , these are slack bytes which are added at the end of the structure if required. Suman Kalia IBM Canada Lab WMB Toolkit Architect and Development Lead Tel: 905-413-3923 T/L 313-3923 Email: kalia@ca.ibm.com For info on Message broker http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.ht... 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@ogf.org https://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg