James, please can you show us the scenario where you want to apply this?

I ask because I think it is the only example in DFDL where you can specify a DFDL delimiter and for there to be nothing for that delimiter in the data. I suspect this might have some ramifications for things like delimiter scanning and dfdl:initiatedContent. It clearly solves a problem for James, but I am wondering whether whether %WSP*; on its own should be allowed as a delimiter?

Regards

Steve Hanson
Architect, IBM Data Format Description Language (DFDL)
Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group
IBM SWG, Hursley, UK
smh@uk.ibm.com
tel:+44-1962-815848



From:        "Garriss Jr., James P." <jgarriss@mitre.org>
To:        "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org>,
Date:        11/06/2013 16:19
Subject:        Re: [DFDL-WG] optional whitespace entity
Sent by:        dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org



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
Tel. 01962-816742  
Internal tel. 37246742




From:        "Garriss Jr., James P." <jgarriss@mitre.org>
To:        "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org>,
Date:        11/06/2013 15:48
Subject:        [DFDL-WG] optional whitespace entity
Sent by:        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--
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