The answer is that it depends on the delimiter. The rules are: a) a terminator is always required, unless it would have been last token in the data stream[1] AND documentFinalTerminatorCanBeMissing is 'yes'. b) a prefix or infix separator is always required unless it has been suppressed, except that the final member of the group ( in the data stream ) will terminated by one of (EOF, separator or terminator from a parent component, end of fixed-length enclosing parent) [2]. c) a postfix separator is always required unless it has been suppressed. [1] where 'data stream' currently means 'the entire data stream' and never 'the scoped length of some parent element' [2] this may sound like an arbitrary rule, but I don't think there is any other rational way to specify it. Consider a single-line document with an infix separator: how will the final element be terminated? Hope that helps, regards, Tim Kimber, DFDL Team, Hursley, UK From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com> To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org, Date: 01/05/2013 15:05 Subject: [DFDL-WG] when does lengthKind='delimited' accept EOF instead of a terminator. Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org The exact semantics of lengthKind='delimited' are a little bit unclear to me. Are there situations where we accept end-of-data as a substitute for finding a delimiter? Consider this: <element name="foo" type="xs:string" dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" dfdl:initiator="[START]" dfdl:terminator="[END]"/> I think this string should always cause a processing error: "[START] some data ". That is, the [END] terminator is not present, instead one runs out of data. So what exactly are the situations where delimited length kind will not find a delimiter, hit end-of-data, and be ok with it? I understand that hitting end-of-data might cause a backtrack for resolving points of uncertainty, but is there ever a case where running out of data is accepted as a substitute for finding a delimiter? (I am hoping the answer here is no, but I am asking because I am not certain.) -- Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | www.tresys.com -- dfdl-wg mailing list 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