I have a bunch of questions/issues relating to dfdl:choiceKind. I'm not asking for changes in v0.40, but I expect there will be changes required.

The issues that I want to raise are:
a) The description of the property in v0.39 contains several typos and inaccuracies.
- 'implicit' is being used where 'fixedLength' was intended.
- nothing is said about the units in which the length is calculated.
- there's no need to discuss how the choice is resolved when discussing the 'variableLength' enum
- we should use standard phraseology when indicating whether a property can be computed from a DFDL expression.

b) Property name should be 'choiceLengthKind' to accurately reflect its meaning

c) There is a need for a related property 'choiceLengthUnits'
Consider the recursive algorithm for calculating the length of each branch. It needs to know whether it is calculating a length in bytes or characters. If the length is in bytes, then the length cannot be calculated for variable-width encodings. If the length is in characters, then the length cannot always be calculated reliably if there are raw byte values in the markup.

d) The rules for calculating the max length of the choice are not provided. They are complex, and not at all obvious. Consider these issues:
The length of a branch cannot be calculated if
- there are any optional elements or variable-length arrays anywhere in the branch
- any field in the branch has dfdl:alignment > "1" ( at least, I can't work out what the rules would be. The alignment of the parent element would need to be factored in )
- any element or group in the branch specifies its initiator, terminator or separator as a DFDL expression
- any element or group in the branch specifies its length as a DFDL expression

if choiceLengthUnits='characters' then the length cannot be calculated if
- any element or group in the branch specifies a DFDL string literal containing DFDL mnemonics %NL; %WSP*; or %WSP+;
- any element or group in the branch uses a DFDL string literal that contains sequence of raw byte values with length different from the fixed character width

if choiceLengthUnits='characters' then the length cannot be calculated if
- any element in the branch specifies a variable-width encoding, or specifies its encoding as a DFDL expression.
 
There are probably other rules which need to be applied, but the above should illustrate the point. Calculating the length is only possible under some *very* restrictive conditions.

e) I think the property may not be required
As far as I am aware, this property was introduced to provide support for COBOL REDEFINES, and to allow MRM message sets to be migrated to DFDL. If true, the problem gets a lot simpler:
- COBOL does not use initiators/terminators.
- The COBOL compiler contains code that calculates the length of the structure ( it must, because COBOL has a rule that a REDEFINES cannot be longer than the record that it is redefining ).
Presumably, it takes alignment into account in some way, and handles issues relating to character width as well.
- COBOL does not allow an anonymous REDEFINES. If imported, A REDEFINES will always produce a complex element whose content is a fixed-length choice.
Note : This means that the same will be true of any MRM message set created by message broker's COBOLimporter.

If those assumptions are correct, then in all cases the same effect could be achieved by putting the precalculated length of the REDEFINES onto the parent element. I think this merits serious consideration. The cost of implementing choiceKind='fixedLength' is quite high because of the complexity of the rules, and the fact that groups, as well as complex elements, can have a fixed length. But it's not really an implementation issue, it's a complexity issue. DFDL should not contain a propery with such complex implementation requirements unless there's a strong case for it - otherwise potential implementers are going to be put off.

The existing COBOL importer probably does not set the precalculated length of a REDEFINES on the parent element. That would be required if we wanted to remove the property - so we would have to discuss that with the group that provides the importer technology.

regards,

Tim Kimber, Common Transformation Team,
Hursley, UK
Internet:  kimbert@uk.ibm.com
Tel. 01962-816742  
Internal tel. 246742



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