[DFDL-WG] when does lengthKind='delimited' accept EOF instead of a terminator.

[Steve Hanson]

Mike

If there is a mandatory delimiter missing, then end-of-data will cause an 
error. It is not a substitute for a mandatory delimiter.

But 'delimited' will work ok when end-of-data found and the delimiter is 
not mandatory. I can think of three such examples:
- no terminating markup in scope at all
- last element in sequence and separatorPosition is not 'postfix'
- last element in sequence and terminator but 
documentFinalTerminatorCanBeMissing 'yes' 

Regards

Steve Hanson
Architect, IBM Data Format Description Language (DFDL)
Co-Chair, OGF DFDL Working Group
IBM SWG, Hursley, UK
smh at uk.ibm.com
tel:+44-1962-815848



From:   Mike Beckerle <mbeckerle.dfdl at gmail.com>
To:     dfdl-wg at ogf.org, 
Date:   01/05/2013 07:05
Subject:        [DFDL-WG] when does lengthKind='delimited' accept EOF 
instead of a    terminator.
Sent by:        dfdl-wg-bounces at ogf.org




The exact semantics of lengthKind='delimited' are a little bit unclear to 
me. 

Are there situations where we accept end-of-data as a substitute for 
finding a delimiter?

Consider this:

<element name="foo" type="xs:string" dfdl:lengthKind="delimited" 
dfdl:initiator="[START]" dfdl:terminator="[END]"/>

I think this string should always cause a processing error: "[START] some 
data ". That is, the [END] terminator is not present, instead one runs out 
of data.

So what exactly are the situations where delimited length kind will not 
find a delimiter, hit end-of-data, and be ok with it?

I understand that hitting end-of-data might cause a backtrack for 
resolving points of uncertainty, but is there ever a case where running 
out of data is accepted as a substitute for finding a delimiter? (I am 
hoping the answer here is no, but I am asking because I am not certain.)

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