lengthKind 'implicit' is mostly for binary types. Like "xs:int" has 32 bit
length with lengthKind 'implicit' and dfdl;binaryNumberRep="binary"
Consider this C struct:
struct {
int x;
int y;
}
Imagine that data written to a file from a 32-bit computer/compiler.
The natural way to model this in DFDL is
<sequence>
<element name="x" type="xs:int" dfdl:lengthKind="implicit"/>
<element name="y" type="xs:int" dfdl:lengthKind="implicit"/>
</sequence>
For your text case, if you really want to say the first element is a number,
the second is a string, and that string WILL NOT start with digits, to achieve
that you use lengthKind="pattern" and a regex that captures digits only.
________________________________
From: Costello, Roger L. <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2020 2:03 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: A text data value with an implicit length?
Hi Folks,
Consider this input:
8John Doe
The number indicates the length of the following string.
So there are two data items: the first data item is an integer and the second
data item is a string.
I figured that for the first data item I could specify it this way
type = integer
lengthKind = implicit
Alas, I discovered: Type Integer cannot have lengthKind='implicit' when
representation='text'
Table 18 in the specification confirms that.
I am seeking an example of a text data value with an implicit length, i.e.,
<xs:element name="example" type="???" dfdl:lengthKind="implicit" />
Does such a thing exist? Is there ever a text data value whose length is
implicit?
/Roger
