A couple of clarifications if I may.... - In your example, you have someField as being of simple type, can it be complex type in your real format? - You said "If presentBit is zero, then A1 has zero occurences". But in your xsd you have A1 as (implied) minOccurs="1". I think you meant minOccurs="0"? Regards Steve Hanson Architect, Data Format Description Language (DFDL) Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group IBM SWG, Hursley, UK smh@uk.ibm.com tel:+44-1962-815848 From: Ryan Farrell <ryan.farrell.ctr@nrl.navy.mil> To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org Date: 19/07/2011 19:12 Subject: [DFDL-WG] [wg-all] Repeating groups in DFDL Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org For anyone that was at the 19/07 phone meeting, this is what Adam Fox and I were trying to find a solution to. If anyone knows of a solution, please contact me or adam.fox@nrl.navy.mil. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the attached xml schema while reading this message. The problem we want to solve is how to represent a structure that can have a variable amount of occurences (even zero), and the amount of repeats is controlled by a one bit field, which we will call"repeatBit". The repeating structure in this case is "A1". The element before it, "presentBit", determines if there is at least one occurence of A1. If presentBit is zero, then A1 has zero occurences. If presentBit is one, then A1 has AT LEAST one occurence. The first element in A1 is "repeatBit". What repeatBit does is tells us if there will be another occurence of A1 after the current occurence. When repeatBit is zero, then that means we will read through the rest of A1, then that is the last occurence of A1. As long as repeatBit continues to be one however, we will read through the rest of A1, then start a new occurence. I have included all the known required DFDL notation. Please let me know what is missing. EXAMPLE INPUT (results are in base 10): NOTE: Not all bits are used in these examples. Unused bits should be ignored for the purpose of the examples. 1) 0111 0101 presentBit = 0 aFieldAfterA1 = 3 2) 1011 1010 presentBit = 1 A1 -repeatBit = 0 -someField = 3 aFieldAfterA1 = 2 3) 1101 0110 0000 0000 presentBit = 1 A1 -repeatBit = 1 -someField = 1 A1 -repeatBit = 0 -someField = 3 aFieldAfterA1 = 0 [attachment "repeat_example.xsd" deleted by Steve Hanson/UK/IBM] -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org http://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