Fw: Reducing the number of DFDL properties.
nullTerminated is a very familiar paradigm which the users understand. We need to keep usability in mind; keep simple tasks simple. Yes it is redundant and you can do the same with 2 properties ( lengthKind=delimited and terminator=NULL) but it is well worth to keep it.. Same argument can be made for trimKind.. I am ok if we drop typeSubstitution although it is a convenient way to specify whole bunch properties grouped together for a type and reuse it. Suman Kalia IBM Toronto Lab WMB Toolkit Architect and Development Lead WebSphere Business Integration Application Connectivity Tools http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.ht... Tel : 905-413-3923 T/L 969-3923 Fax : 905-413-4850 T/L 969-4850 Internet ID : kalia@ca.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM on 02/26/2009 01:52 PM ----- From: Alan Powell <alan_powell@uk.ibm.com> To: mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com Cc: dfdl-wg@ogf.org Date: 02/26/2009 12:27 PM Subject: [DFDL-WG] Reducing the number of DFDL properties. 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. 1. 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? 2. 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. 3. 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 816898 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 -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg
I favour dropping nullTerminated. If we have null terminated, then why don't we have a lengthKind called CRLFTerminated - it is far, far more common in actual message data. I suspect nullTerminated would be used very little. Most data emitted from C programs will be mapped by a struct, where character 'strings' are fixed length padded with nulls, not variable length and terminated by one. Also, minimising the number of lengthKind enums is important - lengthKind is the critical property which controls parsing and the less cases the user has to understand the better. Regards Steve Hanson Programming Model Architect WebSphere Message Brokers Hursley, UK Internet: smh@uk.ibm.com Phone (+44)/(0) 1962-815848 Suman Kalia <kalia@ca.ibm.com> Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org 26/02/2009 19:01 To Alan Powell/UK/IBM@IBMGB cc dfdl-wg@ogf.org Subject [DFDL-WG] Fw: Reducing the number of DFDL properties. nullTerminated is a very familiar paradigm which the users understand. We need to keep usability in mind; keep simple tasks simple. Yes it is redundant and you can do the same with 2 properties ( lengthKind=delimited and terminator=NULL) but it is well worth to keep it.. Same argument can be made for trimKind.. I am ok if we drop typeSubstitution although it is a convenient way to specify whole bunch properties grouped together for a type and reuse it. Suman Kalia IBM Toronto Lab WMB Toolkit Architect and Development Lead WebSphere Business Integration Application Connectivity Tools http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/wmb.ht... Tel : 905-413-3923 T/L 969-3923 Fax : 905-413-4850 T/L 969-4850 Internet ID : kalia@ca.ibm.com ----- Forwarded by Suman Kalia/Toronto/IBM on 02/26/2009 01:52 PM ----- From: Alan Powell <alan_powell@uk.ibm.com> To: mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com Cc: dfdl-wg@ogf.org Date: 02/26/2009 12:27 PM Subject: [DFDL-WG] Reducing the number of DFDL properties. 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. 1. 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? 2. 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. 3. 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 816898 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 -- dfdl-wg mailing list dfdl-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dfdl-wg -- 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
participants (2)
-
Steve Hanson -
Suman Kalia