You know, Tim, that is what I meant, but I just copied the syntax directly from Table 4. Upon further review, I see that this table doesn't give the complete syntax. I wonder how many other people will just cut-and-paste directly from these tables. It might be a good idea to put the complete syntax there. In any case, thanks for the explanation. That's what I hoped it would do. From: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org [mailto:dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org] On Behalf Of Tim Kimber Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:02 AM To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] optional whitespace entity I assume that you meant to write dfdl:initiator="%WSP*;" That will match zero or more whitespace characters. It will match and consume any leading white space before the element, and it will never fail to match. regards, Tim Kimber, DFDL Team, Hursley, UK Internet: kimbert@uk.ibm.com<mailto:kimbert@uk.ibm.com> Tel. 01962-816742 Internal tel. 37246742 From: "Garriss Jr., James P." <jgarriss@mitre.org<mailto:jgarriss@mitre.org>> To: "dfdl-wg@ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg@ogf.org>" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg@ogf.org>>, Date: 11/06/2013 15:48 Subject: [DFDL-WG] optional whitespace entity Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org> ________________________________ <xsd:element name="Day" dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" dfdl:initiator="WSP*"> Will this element match if the initiator is not found (that is, even if there is not a space before element? TIA-- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org<mailto:dfdl-wg@ogf.org> https://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