Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description
Language Working Group
Weekly Working Group Conference Call
17:00 GMT, 28 Nov 2007
Attendees
Mike Beckerle (IBM)
Geoff Judd (IBM)
Steve Hanson (IBM)
Ian Parkinson (IBM)
Alan Powell (IBM)
1. Introduction
The agenda, distributed by Mike prior
to the call, covered two main items for discussion.
A proposal has been circulated to the
DFDL-WG mailing list, describing the use of annotated simple types for
describing length prefixes, which had already been discussed within IBM.
In the absense of Simon Parker or representatives from parties other than
IBM, the meeting opted not to discuss this proposal at this time.
2. Plan for contents of next draft
The distributed agenda included a draft
list of items to be included in the next draft of the DFDL specification.
Steve queried the 'integer type added' item: Mike explained there had been
a debate over support for both the integer XSD type and the decimal type.
We had previously opted to support both, as the canonical representation
for decimal includes a trailing ".0" on integers, which may be
confusing for users.
Mike would like to prepare, along similar
lines, a plan covering several draft versions of the specification. Some
work items, such as the SWIFT example, would be omitted from the plan as
they do not directly concern the text of the specification. Mike's plan
will be distributed via the DFDL-WG mailing list.
Alan asked if we should set a target
date for completion of the specification. Mike observed that we had previously
set target dates that had not been achieved; however Steve felt that as
we are in a position to plan the next few drafts of the specification,
a target date is likely to be more reasonable.
3. Other business
Steve has been revisiting the decimal
supplement, and has found some errors. Mike observed that it would be desirable
for DFDL's support of packed decimal numbers and floating point numbers
to be analogous. One complexity lies in the number of types of packed decimal
that DFDL needs to support (including 'pure', unsigned packed, IBM packed,
and zoned decimal), along with variants, which Mike felt might best be
addressed through a small pattern language. Steve would investigate this
further.
Meeting closed, 17:30 GMT
Ian Parkinson
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