<br><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">>> Changes made after
comments on the call today. Should now be ok to add to spec draft 0.35.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">For approval on this week's call. This
property permits instances of specific elements to 'float' in the representation,
as is found in some real-world formats such as X12, with its NTE segment.</font>
<br>
<table border>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><i>Property</i></font>
<td><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><i>Description</i></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td><font size=2 face="sans-serif">floating</font>
<td><font size=1 face="Arial">Boolean</font>
<p><font size=1 face="Arial">Whether the occurrences of an element in </font><font size=1 color=blue face="Arial">an
ordered</font><font size=1 face="Arial"> sequence can appear out-of-order
in the representation. </font><font size=1 color=blue face="Arial"><strike>A
value for dfdl:floating is only acted upon if the immediate parent is a
sequence and dfdl:sequenceKind="ordered"; it is ignored otherwise.</strike></font>
<p><font size=1 face="Arial">When parsing, and dfdl:floating is true, instances
of the element may be encountered in the representation in any position
within its containing sequence, but, if present, are placed into the infoset
in schema declaration order. If the element repeats, instances do not need
to be contiguous in the representation. </font>
<p><font size=1 face="Arial">When parsing, and dfdl:floating is false,
instances of the element are expected in schema declaration order, and,
if present, they are placed into the infoset in schema declaration order.
It is a processing error if instances of the element are not encountered
in schema declaration order.</font>
<p><font size=1 face="Arial">When unparsing, instances of the element are
expected in the infoset in schema declaration order, and are output in
the representation in schema declaration order. It is a processing error
if instances of the element are not encountered in schema declaration order,</font>
<p><font size=2 color=blue face="Arial">It is a schema definition error
if an unordered sequence or a choice contains any element with dfdl:floating="true".</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Arial">It is a schema definition error if </font><font size=2 color=blue face="Arial">an
ordered</font><font size=2 face="Arial"> sequence contains </font><font size=2 color=blue face="Arial">any
element</font><font size=2 face="Arial"> with dfdl:floating="true"
and non-element content.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Arial">Annotation: dfdl:element on a simple or complex
local element or element reference</font></table>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><b>Notes:</b></font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">a) It should be clarified in the spec
that the instances of a repeating element in an unordered sequence do not
need to be contiguous either. This is in keeping with the behaviour of
xs:all groups in XML Schema 1.1. </font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">b) The consequence of the above statements
of behaviour is that an ordered sequence of n element children with</font><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">
either n or </font><font size=2 face="sans-serif">n-1 </font><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">of
those</font><font size=2 face="sans-serif"> children with dfdl:floating="true"
is equivalent to an unordered sequence with the same n element children
</font><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">with dfdl:floating="false"</font><font size=2 face="sans-serif">.
(This is deliberate design decision to aid consumability </font><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">and
implementations</font><font size=2 face="sans-serif">.)</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">c) A complex element with dfdl:floating="true"
can have as its content model a sequence with elements that also have dfdl:floating="true".</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">d) This makes every element in a sequence
containing one or more floating elements a point of uncertainty, in the
same way as every element in an unordered sequence is a point of uncertainty.
</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">e) dfdl:floating is not allowed on a
global element to be consistent with what we decided about occurs related
properties, which only come into play when an element is used. </font><font size=2 color=blue face="sans-serif">This,
plus the fact that "false" will typically be the scoped value
of dfdl:floating, means that dfdl:floating="true" will invariably
only appear explicitly on a local element or group reference. For this
reason, its appearance in a choice or unordered sequence is deemed deliberate,
and it is ok to treat this as a schema definition error.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Regards<br>
<br>
Steve Hanson<br>
Programming Model Architect<br>
WebSphere Message Brokers<br>
Hursley, UK<br>
Internet: smh@uk.ibm.com<br>
Phone (+44)/(0) 1962-815848<br>
</font>
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