Dear all,

my 2 cents on variable occurrence fields.

We have been using XML syntax (in now defunct BinX format) to
describe the structure of ESA Earth Observation SMOS Mission Science binary
data Product. (see http://www.smos.com.pt/)

We also developed some custom C/C++ library to allow Read/Write access to
these binary data as we felt this would allow to easily modify the binary structure
of the data product without requiring application code changes but only XML "schema".

One of the major limitation we have found in BinX (which I'm not sure has been solved in DFDL)
is indeed related to describing a binary structure with variable number of records where the number
is described (dynamically) within the binary itself. We had to define a pre-processor of the binary data 
which would read each instance of the file find out how many of the records we had and create
at run-time a XML schema with the correct number of replication of the XML code describing each 
of the records. This is very inconvenient and un-elegant.

For example a binary data Product with a variable number of scientific observation
would be (symbolically) structured as:

Number_of_Records 
Data_Record_1 (blah, blah, etc etc )
Data_Record_2 ((blah, blah, etc etc)
.....
Record_N  (with N= Number_of_Records )

It would be desirable to be able to specify such a data product like:

Number_of_Records
List (count=Number_of_Records) of Data_Record

The other feature which we greatly missed is bit level operation since many of our Space data structure
are formatted at bit level e.g. 3 bits field + 2 bit field + 11 bit field etc.

Regards



From: Ryan Farrell <ryan.farrell.ctr@nrl.navy.mil>
Date: July 19, 2011 20:12:05 GMT+02:00
To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org
Subject: [DFDL-WG] [wg-all] Repeating groups in DFDL


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
<repeat_example.xsd>


From: Steve Hanson <smh@uk.ibm.com>
Date: July 20, 2011 10:54:27 GMT+02:00
To: Ryan Farrell <ryan.farrell.ctr@nrl.navy.mil>
Cc: dfdl-wg@ogf.org
Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] [wg-all] Repeating groups in DFDL



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









From: Steve Hanson <smh@uk.ibm.com>
Date: July 20, 2011 13:28:47 GMT+02:00
To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org
Cc: DFDL-Technical-Core%IBMGB@uk.ibm.com
Subject: [DFDL-WG] OGF DFDL WG Call Minutes 2011-07-19



Please find minutes of the above meeting on GridForge at:

http://forge.gridforum.org/sf/docman/do/downloadDocument/projects.dfdl-wg/docman.root.current_0.calls/doc16291/2

Regards

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





From: "Mike Beckerle" <mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com>
Date: July 23, 2011 00:43:49 GMT+02:00
To: "'Ryan Farrell'" <ryan.farrell.ctr@nrl.navy.mil>, <dfdl-wg@ogf.org>
Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] [wg-all] Repeating groups in DFDL


Great example Ryan,

We've spent quite a bit of time over the last several months on textual
formats with these kinds of characteristics, which I would describe as
"occurrances determined by parsing" - that is, you look at the data to
determine "is there another element or not" one by one as they are parsed.

We need to make sure the properties are there to make this work for the
binary case as well.  

I actually believe we cannot handle this format right now. We don't have a
property which says to look at the current element to determine whether to
expect a subsequent element, as a way of determining occurrence counts.

Next week we'll add resolving this example to the workgroup actions list.

...mikeb

Mike Beckerle
Senior Technology Leader/Manager
Deloitte Managed Analytics
100 Fifth Avenue, Waltham, MA 02451
Tel/Direct: +1 781 330 0412 | Fax: +1 866 253 3006
www.deloitte.com


-----Original Message-----
From: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org [mailto:dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org] On Behalf Of
Ryan Farrell
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 2:12 PM
To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org
Subject: [DFDL-WG] [wg-all] Repeating groups in DFDL

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





From: Steve Hanson <smh@uk.ibm.com>
Date: July 26, 2011 11:58:59 GMT+02:00
To: dfdl-wg@ogf.org
Subject: [DFDL-WG] OGF DFDL WG Call Agenda 2011-07-26



Please find agenda for the above call on GridForge at:

http://forge.gridforum.org/sf/docman/do/downloadDocument/projects.dfdl-wg/docman.root.current_0.calls/doc16304/1

As per action 144 an errata to the spec has been created here: http://forge.gridforum.org/sf/go/doc16280?nav=1

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





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



-----------------------------------------
Michele Zundo
EOP-PEP
Ground System Definition and Verification Office
European Space Agency, ESTEC