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-- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org https://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