The issue in this case is that the lengthPattern does not include your
nilValue. So in your first example, the pattern length does not match
anything, your MessageIdentifier is essentially the empty string, and so
there's is nothing to check for the nil value. Things go off the rails
from there.
One simple fix is to modify the lengthPattern to match your nilValue,
for example:
dfdl:lengthPattern="[A-Z]{2,20}|-"
So it matches your A-Z string OR a single hyphen.
That said, related to your other question about well-formed vs valid, a
maybe better way to write this would be to not use lengthPattern at all
and just rely on normal delimiter scanning to find the second field. But
then add a restriction to ensure the field is A-Z, for example:
<xs:element name="MessageIdentifier"
nillable="true"
dfdl:nilKind="literalValue"
dfdl:nilValue="-">
<xs:simpleType>
<xs:restriction base="xs:string">
<xs:pattern value="[A-Z]{2,20}"/>
</xs:restriction>
</xs:simpleType>
</xs:element>
Now the schema supports a distinction between well-formed and valid, and
the pattern does not need to care about what makes the field nil.
- Steve
On 8/3/22 1:30 PM, Roger L Costello wrote:
Hi Folks,
I have a field that is 2-20 characters in length. If no data is available, then
the field is to be populated with a hyphen. Below is my element declaration for
the field (it’s the middle element). When I run the DFDL schema with this input:
John Doe/-/Sally Smith
I get this error message:
[error] Parse Error: Failed to parse infix separator. Cause: Parse Error:
Separator '/' not found
Why am I getting that error? /Roger
<xs:element name="Test">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence dfdl:separator="/" dfdl:separatorPosition="infix">
<xs:element name="A" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element name="MessageIdentifier" type="xs:string"
nillable="true"
dfdl:nilKind="literalValue"
dfdl:nilValue="-"
dfdl:lengthKind="pattern"
dfdl:lengthPattern="[A-Z]{2,20}">
</xs:element>
<xs:element name="B" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
