[DFDL-WG] Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Calls, June 16-17 2009

Steve Hanson smh at uk.ibm.com
Thu Jun 18 12:55:57 CDT 2009


Hi Alan

To be precise:

b) Case insensitivity of markup (eg, hdr & HDR for initiator) 
The same new property that indicates the case sensitivity of all  markup 
on a component. 


Regards

Steve Hanson
Programming Model Architect
WebSphere Message Brokers
Hursley, UK
Internet: smh at uk.ibm.com
Phone (+44)/(0) 1962-815848



Alan Powell/UK/IBM at IBMGB 
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[DFDL-WG] Minutes for OGF DFDL Working Group Calls, June 16-17 2009







Open Grid Forum: Data Format Description Language Working Group

OGF DFDL Working Group Calls, June 16-17 2009 

These minutes cover the series of meetings and calls which took place June 
16-17 2009

Meeting opened, 14:00 UK 

Attendees 
Steve Hanson (IBM) 
Mike Beckerle (Oco) 
Suman Kalia (IBM) 
Alan Powell (IBM) 
Peter Lambros (IBM) 

Apologies 



Agenda: 

Actions updated below 


Action 028 Variable Markup/ Recursive use of DFDL 

As decided on last calls recursive use of DFDL will not be supported in 
DFDL v1 

The uses cases are satisfied as follows: 
a) Case insensitivity of data (eg, true & TRUE for text boolean) 
A new property that indicates the case sensitivity of  representation data 
values. Note: this property will not effect calendar values, such as 
Monday,  which will always be case insensitive. 

b) Case insensitivity of markup (eg, hdr & HDR for initiator) 
A new property that indicates the case sensitivity of all  markup on a 
component. 

c) Different possible values for non-white space markup (eg, @ and # for 
separator) 
Markup properties will allow a list of values 

d) Different possible values for data (eg, true & yes for text boolean) 
Value properties will allow a list of values 

e) Encoding of markup different to encoding of data (eg, initiator and 
terminator different to data)
The markup properties must be put on a wrapping xs:sequence and controlled 
by the xs:sequence's encoding property. 



Action 042 Variables. 

The uses cases for variables are 
1.      Extracting syntax data fields 
2.      As an indicator to identify Payload 
3.      As an easier way to set bits in bitmap 
4.      As the way dfdl properties can be set from outside the parser.

And the following aspects need to be defined 
Scoping of defineVariable 
naming/namespaces - include/import 
Unparsing 
Variable Type - enums 
Multiple setVariables in loops etc 

SKK documented his proposal to define the scope of variables by defining 
them in a defineFormat annotation. Variables are in scope when the 
defineFormat is referenced in addition to existing scoping rules. While it 
seems attractive to group variable definitions there was concern that it 
is changing the semantics of defineFormat and making it incompatible with 
the other definexxx annotations. SKK to refine proposal. 
Other aspects of variable still to be resolved. 

Action 051 Implement concerns with current scoping rules. 

MB proposed a new syntax for defining parameters that identified which 
properties can be overridden. Concern at the complexity. SH proposed using 
existing variables. 

Discussion on how overriding should work with simple types. Options : 
1.  Existing rules. Simple types must be completely valid 
2. Disallow dfdl annotations on simple types. 
3. Only allow 'value representation' properties which must be completely 
valid. 


Next call 23 and 24th June 14:00 UK   Scheduled for 2 hours 

Meeting closed, 16:00 UK 

Actions raised at this meeting 
No
Action 










Current Actions: 
No
Action 
012
AP/SH: Update decimalCalendarScheme 
10/9: Not allocated yet 
17/9: No update 
24/9: Add calendar binary formats to actions 
22/10: No progress 
16/1: proposal distributed and discussed. Will be redistributed 
21/1: add locale, 
04/02: changed from locale to specific properties 
18/2: Need more investigation of ICU strict/lax behaviour. 
08/04: Not discussed 
22/04: AP to complete asap once the ICU strict/lax behaviour is 
understood. 
29/04: No progress 
06/05: No progress 
13/05: Calendar has been added to latest spec version v034 but still a few 
details to clarify. 
20/05: No Progress 
27/05: No Progress 
03/06: No Progress (low priority) 
09/06: No Progress (low priority) 
17/06: SH to check ICU code for lax calendar behaviour 
026
SH: Envelopes and Payloads 
08/04: Not discussed explicity, but recursive use of DFDL is tied up with 
this 
22/04: Two aspects. Firstly compositional - do sufficient mechanisms exist 
to model an envelope with a payload that varies. Secondly markup syntax - 
this might be defined in the envelope. 
The second of these is very much tied up with the variable markup action 
028, so will be considered there. SH to verify the composition aspect. 
29/04: SH and AP working on proposal. related to Action 028 
06/05: No progress 
06/05: No progress 
20/05: No Progress 
27/05:  Still a number of aspects to be decided. 
- Compostion - Does the envelope and payload need to be defined in the 
same schema or should they be dynamically bound at runtime? 
- Compostion- How is a variable payload specified. Choice or xs:any; New 
action raised to discuss xs:any 
- extracting dymanic syntax from data. Covered by action 029 valuecalc. 
03/06: Dynamic runtime binding will not be supported. 
SH investigating use of variables to enable standalone and use in envelope 
of global element. 
09/06: Payload should be specified using a choice rather than xs:any 
17/06: SH still working on example using variables 
027
SH: Property precedence tables 
08/04: Not discussed 
22/04: Two things missing from the existing precedence trees. Firstly, 
does not show alternates (eg, initiator v initiatorkind). Secondly, need a 
tree per concrete DFDL object (eg, element). SH to update. 
29/04: No progress 
06/05: SH is updating tables which will be ready for next call 
13/05: SH emailed updated version. AP commented.. See minutes for issues 
and property changes. 
20/05: Updated version circulated. Review before next call and be ready 
for vote. 
27/05: Updated version circulated. more comments raised. 
03/06: Further updates to clarify 'core'. Also identified missing design 
for outputMinLength 
17/06: Being updated to include outputMinlength 
028
SH: Variable markup 
08/04: Discussed briefly at end of call, IBM to see whether there any use 
cases that require recursive use of DFDL. 
15/04: Use case was distributed and will be discussed on next call. 
22/04: The use case in question is EDI where the terminating markup for 
the payload segments is defined in the ISA envelope segment. The markup is 
modelled as an element of simple type where the allowable markup values 
are defined as enums on the type. But we need to handle two cases - 
firstly where the envelope is present, so the value used by the payload is 
taken from the envelope. Secondly where only the payload is present. Here 
we need a way of scanning for all the enum values, and adopting the one we 
actually find, when parsing. And using a default when unparsing. SH to 
explore use of a DFDL variable, where the variable has a default, but also 
has a type that is the same as the markup element - that way we get to use 
the enums without defining everything twice. 
29/04: SH and AP working on proposal. 
06/05: No progress 
13/05: No progress 
20/05: No Progress 
27/05: Progress made and will tie to other actions 
03/06: General desire to avoid having to introduce variable markup in V1. 
Proposed having a property to control case behaviour of all syntax 
(initiator, terminator,separator) rather than separate ones for each. 
Similar property to 'values' (textZeroRep, textBooleanTrueRep, etc). and 
allowing lists of values. SH need to solve remaining uses case as 
described in action 026 
09/06: SH proposal discussed. ICU questions to be researched 
17/06: ICU is always case insensitive. SH to update proposal. 
029
MB: valueCalc (output length calculation) 
08/04: Not discussed 
22/04: Action allocated to MB, this is to complete the work started at the 
Hursley WG F2F meeting. 
29/04: No progress 
06/05: MB will have update for next call 
13/05: MB will have update for next call 
20/05: Some progress. will be circulated this week 
27/05: MB circulated proposal and got comments. Will update and review on 
next call 
03/06: Discussed proposal. MB to update dealing with uses cases raised. 
Options include a new lenghtKind='Reference' to make it easier to 
distinguish from fixed length case. Or use outputLengthCalc to separate 
calculation of parsing and unparsing length. 
09/06: SH/AP proposal discussed and MB to document 
17/06: MB to document proposal. 
Grammar updated and reviewed. Minor changes needed. 


033
AP/TK: Assert/Discriminator semantics. AP to document. TK to check uses of 
discriminator besides choice. 
08/04: In progress within IBM 
22/04: Waiting for TK to return from leave to complete. 
29/04: TK has sent examples shown need for discriminators beyond choice. 
Agreed. MB to respond to TK 
06/05: Discussed suggestion of adding type indicator to discriminator. MB 
to provide examples. 
15/03: Semantic documented in v034. MB to provide examples of need for 
scope indicator on discriminator 
20/05: MB to provide examples of need for scope indicator on discriminator 
(but lower priority than action 029) 
27/05: No Progress (lower priority) 
03/06: No Progress (lower priority) 
09/06: No Progress (lower priority) 
037
All: Approach for XML Schema 1.0 UPA checks. 
22/04: Several non-XML models, when expressed in their most obvious DFDL 
Schema form, would fail XML Schema 1.0 Unique Particle Attribution checks 
that police model ambiguity.  And even re-jigging the model sometimes 
fails to fix this. Note this is equally applicable to XMl Schema 1.1 and 
1.0. While the DFDL parser/unparser can happily resolve the ambiguities, 
the issue is one of definition. If an XSD editor that implements UPA 
checks is used to create DFDL Schema, then errors will be flagged. DFDL 
may have to adopt the position that: 
a)DFDL parser/unparser will not implement some/all UPA checks (exact 
checks tbd) 
b) XML Schema editors that implement UPA checks will not be suitable for 
all DFDL models 
c) If DFDL annotations are removed, the resulting pure XSD will not always 
be valid (ie, the equivalent XML is ambiguous and can't be modelled by XML 
Schema 1.0) 
Ongoing in case another solution can be found. 
29/04: Will ask DG and S Gao for opinion before closing 
06/05: Discussed S Gao email and suggestions. Decided need to review all 
XML UPA rules and decide which apply to dfdl. 
20/05: SH or SKK to investigate 
27/05: No Progress 
03/06: The concern is that some dfdl schemas will fail UPA check when 
validation is turned on or when editted using tooling that enforces UPA 
checks. Renaming fields will resolve some/most issues. Need documentation 
that  describes issue and best practice. 
17/06: no change 
038
MB: Submit response to OMG RFI for non-XML standardization 
22/04: First step is for MB to mail the OGF Data Area chair to say that we 
want to submit 
29/04: MB has been in contact with OMG and will sunbit dfdl. 
06/05: MB has prepared response to OMG. Will send DFDL sepc v033 
20/05: Response has been sent to OMG based on v034 
27/05: Awaiting response from OMG. 
03/06: On hold 
042
MB: Complete variable specification. 
To include how properties such as encoding can be set externally. Must be 
a known variable name. 
06/05: No progress 
20/05: AP to make proposal 
27/05: MB proposed differentiating between input and output variables to 
avoid unnecessary evaluations during parse and unparse. Need to complete 
rest of variable specification. 
03/06: Pointed out problem of declaring variables input or output when 
used to define syntax which is used both times. MB to update proposal to 
include how variables are set externally and how specific properties  such 
as encoding are set. 
09/06: SKK to use example to dicument his proposal 
17/06: SKK to refine proposal. Other aspects need progress. 
044
13/05:  Bidi 
20/05: AP: will check what IBM products support. 
27/05: Bidi is supported so will be needed in dfdl v1 
03/06: No Progress 
09/06: No Progress 
045
20/05 AP: Speculative Parsing 
27/05: Psuedo code has been circulated. Review for next call 
03/06: Comments received and will be incorporated 
09/06: Progress but not discussed 
17/06: Discussed briefly 
049
20/05 AP Built-in specification description and schemas 
03/06: not discussed 
050
27/05: xs:any currently limited to initiated text element. Is this 
sufficient? Should xs:any in its current form be deferred? 
03/06: not discussed 
09/06: Proposed dropping xs:any support 
17:06: Agreed to defer from DFDL v1 subject to final checks that IBM do 
not need function. 
051
Scoping rules. 
MB: to document change to scoping rules to satisfy implementation concerns 

17/06: MB and SH proposals discussed. Needs further discussion
Closed actions: 
043
13/05:  Types in the infoset.  Currently infoset types have defined value 
space but that implies a parser would have to validate input. Is this 
correct? 
20/05: SH No progress 
27/05: No Progress 
03/06: No Progress 
09/06: SH proposed staying with XML built-in types. Closed 
17/06 closed 
047
20/05 AP: Scoping for non-format annotations 
27/05: Discussed briefly. AP to distribute 
03/06: Proposal discussed briefly. Will be updated. 
09/06: Doc emailed. Awaiting outcome of variable to define/setvariable 
rules. 
17/06: Closed. Move to work item. Will be updated when variables resolved. 

048
20/05: AP investigate Restart 
27/05: Suggest RESTART is not part of the scope for DFDL. 
03/06: not discussed 
09/06: Closed
Work items: 
No
Item 
target version 
status 
003
Variables - ??, 2008 (Mike) 


005
Improvements on property descriptions - ??, 2008 (All - split TBD) 


006
Envelopes and Payloads (Steve) - Apr 30, 2008 


007
(from draft 32) valueCalc (Mike) - ??, 2008   

mostly 
complete 
008
(from draft 32) Property precedence for writing (Steve) - 

under review 
009
(from draft 32) Variable markup (Steve) - Mar 31, 2008   

proposal needs writing up 
011
(from draft 32) How speculative parsing works (combining choice and 
variable-occurence - currently these are separate) ??, 2008 (IBM) 

 in progress 
012
(from draft 32) Reordering the properties discussion: move representation 
earlier, improve flow of topics ??, 2008 (Alan) 

not started 
027 
Calendar schemes 
034 

032 
Floating components 


033 
Changes from action 020 and 027 - renaming properties etc 


035 
Remove unorderedInitiated, add initiated content (a041) 


036 
Update dfdl schema with change properties (Suman) 


037 
Infoset text codepage 


038 
Improve length section 


039 
Change scoping of simple types (A 046) 


040 
Document outputMinLength  (A027) 


042 
mapping of the dfdl infoset to XDM 

Not required for V1 specification 
043 
Document infoset data types (A043) 


044 
non-format scoping rules (A047) 











Alan Powell

MP 211, IBM UK Labs, Hursley,  Winchester, SO21 2JN, England
Notes Id: Alan Powell/UK/IBM     email: alan_powell at uk.ibm.com 
Tel: +44 (0)1962 815073                  Fax: +44 (0)1962 816898





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