If a property is redundant, I'm in favor of dropping
it.
If a property adds generality that we don't have a use case
for, I'm in favor of dropping it.
I am happy to drop type substitution from v1.0. It's a
convenience that can be achieved a different way.
E.g., if you really want "float" to mean "float in my
particular binary representation", then just put a type definition with DFDL
annotations in a different namespace, and when you write your DFDL schema,
arrange for the default namespace to pick it up from your namespace, and not
xs:float.
<xs:element name="myElement" type="float"/> <!--
float here is myNamespace:float which can have DFDL annotations on it
-->
<xs:element name="anotherElem" type="xs:float"/>
<!-- explicitly xs:float without further adornment -->
If you want the XSD unadorned "float" type, be explicit and
use "xs:float". Voila - no loss of flexibility, equal
textual convenience.
I
think that would satisfy the community that really wanted very compact
"slideware acceptable" schemas. This is the same group that wants short-form
annotations as well.
Mike Beckerle |
OGF DFDL WG Co-Chair | CTO | Oco, Inc.
Tel:
781-810-2100 | 100 Fifth
Ave., 4th Floor, Waltham MA 02451 | mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com
Mike
A number of people at IBM have become concerned at the
number of properties in DFDL and have identified a number of 'usability'
properties that could be dropped. They feel that we should be simplifying the
properties wherever possible and not introducing multiple ways of doing the same
function without very good reason.
The following are offered for consideration.
- lengthKind='nullterminated'
This
is just shorthand for lengthKind=delimited and terminator='%Null'. It
was felt this this is not even the most common terminator so why have a
special case?
- trimKind
It is felt that there
aren't any cases when you would want to pad but not trim and vice versa so
make padKind control both.
- typeSubstitution.
Is this needed
in DFDL v1?
Can you consider
these before the call next week
Alan
Powell
MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley, Winchester, SO21 2JN,
England
Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM email:
alan_powell@uk.ibm.com
Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073
Fax: +44 (0)1962
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