On the face of it, yes it does seem inconsistent. The point being that "%WSP*;" is the same as "%ES; %WSP+;" (on parsing, longest match is taken; on unparsing nothing is output). In our NACHA xsds we have: <dfdl:defineFormat name="NACHARecord"> <dfdl:format lengthKind="explicit" length="94" terminator="%WSP*;"/> </dfdl:defineFormat> But strictly speaking it should be this because it's an optional new line that appears rather than any white space: <dfdl:defineFormat name="NACHARecord"> <dfdl:format lengthKind="explicit" length="94" terminator="%ES; %NL;"/> </dfdl:defineFormat> If we allow ES then ES on its own as the only string literal in the list should be an error. Regards Steve Hanson Architect, IBM 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> To: "dfdl-wg@ogf.org" <dfdl-wg@ogf.org>, Date: 26/06/2014 18:17 Subject: [DFDL-WG] ES in delimiters Sent by: dfdl-wg-bounces@ogf.org Steve Lawrence from the Daffodil project has observed that we're not particularly consistent about delimiters and the %ES; entity. We allow WSP* with caveat that you can't have initiatedContent, but we disallow ES. There is a use case for optional delimiters e.g., initator="%CR;%LF; %ES;" meaning absorb and discard an optional CRLF. Without %ES we end up having to model this syntax as an optional hidden element. Thoughts? ...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 -- 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