I need an example of this blobby array scheme. To me this concept makes no sense. We're embedded in XSD's type system, so if you can talk about arrays at all, then there has to be a logical model for them, and that means a way to talk about them in XSD independent of DFDL annotations. We COULD propose an extension to XSD for arrays. Is that what you mean? ...mikeb Mike Beckerle Architect, Scalable Computing IBM Software Group Information Integration Solutions Westborough, MA Jim Myers <jimmyers@ncsa.uiuc.edu> Sent by: owner-dfdl-wg@ggf.org 09/06/2005 12:44 PM To dfdl-wg@gridforum.org cc Subject Re: Arrays issue - Re: [dfdl-wg] Issues: additional data types
Array as blob: markup says 'this is an array, laid out like so', data is a big blob. (Probably this is what Jim is talking about)
Yes
Array as external blob: same as above, except payload is a URL, e.g., to OpenDAP server where the data is. (Ideal for "virtual datasets")
I definitely want to see data virtualization services based on DFDL, but I don't think we need do anything specific in the language to provide externally available access methods for parts of the described data set. Jim