[DFDL-WG] RFC 2119 word usage in DFDL Spec

[Jensen, Jens (STFC,RAL,SC)]

Hi Mike,

The usual convention is if you use the words in the RFC 2119 sense, 
they're upper case (and you'd include a line saying this somewhere). If 
they're lower case as in your example below, I would not interpret it as 
an RFC 2119 key word.

Conversely, your later sentence might then be rephrased as "If the 
representation is ambiguous [..] the Unparser MUST flag a schema 
definition error" - or some such. Maybe even "representation properties 
MAY be used to eliminate the ambiguity" [in order to emphasise that this 
is optional]

Regards
--jens

On 30/09/2019 17:34, Mike Beckerle wrote:
> In studying Tracker 304 https://redmine.ogf.org/issues/304 I have 
> found that there are many uses of words like must and should, which 
> are not specifically in accord with the notions of RFC 2119, because 
> they are not involved in statements about requirements.
>
> For example, in section 2.3.1.1
>
> Usually, the behavior of the unparser is symmetric to the behavior of 
> the parser; however, there are cases where the DFDL schema will accept 
> several equivalent representations for the same logical data. In this 
> case it would be ambiguous which of these equivalent representations 
> should be produced by the unparser. The DFDL standard contains 
> representation properties which are used to eliminate this ambiguity. 
> It is a schema definition error if a DFDL schema is being used to 
> unparse data and there is any ambiguity about the representation.
>
>
> We can either ignore such issues, because the context doesn't require 
> us to consider this a requirement statement, or reword so as to avoid 
> RFC2119 terms. I am not sure it is worth changing this prose in all 
> the places where this sort of thing happens. The word 'should' is less 
> problematic than the word 'must' of which there are hundreds of 
> occurrences.
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
> Mike Beckerle | OGF DFDL Workgroup Co-Chair | Tresys Technology | 
> www.tresys.com <http://www.tresys.com>
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