[DFDL-WG] NaN (Not a Number) in DFDL Infoset

[Mike Beckerle]

On our call today we were discussing whether a NaN is allowed in the
Infoset or not.

I found that XML Schema allows NaN as a value, hence, the PSVI allows NaN
as a value.

I also found that XPath 2.0 specifically says that any operation involving
NaN produces another NaN.

So, I believe we should allow NaNs in the DFDL Infoset without causing any
error.

An implementation note, and probably the source of my confusion on this
issue is this: I have observed that java's text number parser, if setup and
used to create a float or double, and given some gibberish data that I
used, produces a java NaN. In this case, a DFDL implementation must not
just accept this NaN into the DFDL infoset, but must scrutinize the data to
see if it matches the required representation for a NaN based on the DFDL
property dfdl:textStandardNaNRep (as well as dfdl:textNumberJustification
since the NaN rep may be surrounded by pad characters). If not, then it is
a parse error, as the data is not convertible to the type.



-- 
Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology |
www.tresys.com
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