I believe the analogy is not quite right. For zero, having textStandardZeroRep "" means that the "ordinary" string for zero i.e., "0" means zero. There's an implied string conceptually. But for NaN and Inf there is no "ordinary" string to fall back on. They would have to cause an error. I think just prohibiting these from being "" is a better choice. ....mikeb Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | www.tresys.com Please note: Contributions to the DFDL Workgroup's email discussions are subject to the OGF Intellectual Property Policy <http://www.ogf.org/About/abt_policies.php> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Steve Hanson <smh@uk.ibm.com> wrote:

Mike

I came to write up the issue tracker for this and had a thought. Property textStandardZeroRep says:

*The empty string means that there is no special literal string for zero. *

I wondered if the equivalent is a better interpretation of empty string for textStandardNanRep and textStandardInfinityRep ?

Regards

Steve Hanson *IBM Integration Bus* <http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/ibm-integration-bus>, Hursley, UK Architect, *IBM DFDL* <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/se-dfdl/index.html> Co-Chair, *OGF DFDL Working Group* <http://www.ogf.org/dfdl/> *smh@uk.ibm.com* <smh@uk.ibm.com> tel:+44-1962-815848 mob:+44-7717-378890

From: Steve Hanson/UK/IBM To: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com> Cc: "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org> Date: 19/05/2016 21:53 Subject: Re: [DFDL-WG] clarification: textBooleanTrue/FalseRep cannot be empty string? textStandardNaNRep and friends cannot be empty string. ------------------------------

Agree that textBooleanxxxRep properties should state empty string not allowed.

The textStandardNanRep and textStandardInfinityRep properties should state empty string not allowed. The others you list already mention empty string.

Regards

Steve Hanson *IBM Integration Bus* <http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/ibm-integration-bus>, Hursley, UK Architect, *IBM DFDL* <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/se-dfdl/index.html> Co-Chair, *OGF DFDL Working Group* <http://www.ogf.org/dfdl/> *smh@uk.ibm.com* <smh@uk.ibm.com> tel:+44-1962-815848 mob:+44-7717-378890

From: Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl@gmail.com> To: "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org> Date: 19/05/2016 17:38 Subject: [DFDL-WG] clarification: textBooleanTrue/FalseRep cannot be empty string? textStandardNaNRep and friends cannot be empty string. Sent by: "dfdl-wg" <dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org> ------------------------------

We don't stipulate that textBooleanTrueRep nor textBooleanFalseRep cannot be empty string.

We do stipulate that entity ES is not allowed. So I expect these properties cannot be "" meaning the same thing that "%ES;" would mean. Since we disallow the latter, we should disallow just "".

Similarly, for textStandardGroupingSeparator, textStandardExponentRep, textStandardNaNRep, and textStandardInfinityRep we specify that the string literal value behaves as specified in textStandardDecimalSeparator, but we don't specify that these cannot be empty string (which is specified in textStandardDecimalSeparator, but not in the "Text Number Character Restrictions" part of that property description that is referenced from these other properties.)

ES and WSP* are not allowed, so almost certainly empty string should not be allowed.

Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | *www.tresys.com* <http://www.tresys.com/> Please note: Contributions to the DFDL Workgroup's email discussions are subject to the *OGF Intellectual Property Policy* <http://www.ogf.org/About/abt_policies.php> -- 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

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