[dsdl-discuss] Re: Fw: DTLL 0.4

Jeni

Congratulations on a neat redrafting of your proposal. I noted the following
points when reading it for the first time:

1) The use of the asterisk after preprocess in the definition of parse seems
to conflict with the definition of preprocess, where you specifically state
there is only one built-in form of preprocessing, for whitespace processing.
It would be better expressed as preprocess?

2) The use of ? and [ is ambiguous in the example regex for dates. The -?
entry in (?[year]-?[0-9]{4}) has not been noted as indicating optionality.
It would be better if the first ? were replaced by an alternative character
not used elsewhere in regular expressions, such as !, # or @. I would also
suggest removal of the brackets, using something of the form
(@year@-?[0-9]{4}) or (#year#-?[0-9]{4}) instead and relying on a \@ type
construct to identify the selected character if it is needed at the start of
the matched string.

3) The acronyms EBNF and PEGS used in the Extension Parsing Elements need
definition.

4) When describing properties it is not clear why you use $colour/red,
$colour/green, etc rather than $colour.red, etc. In the preceding paragraph
you mention $this.name, but then give an example that does not use this
construct, without a) explaining why or b) explaining the notation used in
the example.

5) In the last sentence of the Type Specifiers section I would suggest that
"this value may be" should read "this value should be" or "this value must
be". (Under what conditions would the optionality of "may" be required?)

6) The example for ISODate is incorrect in the regex as it shows the use of
/ as separators, whereas ISO dates should use hyphens, as is indicated in
the map.

7) The exact role of the as attribute in maps could do with a clearer
explanation. (Is it a compulsory instruction to "treat x as if it were y"?)

Apart from these minor quibbles this text looks as if it has reached a stage
where we should be submitting this to ISO for a CD ballot among member
countries as Part 5 of DSDL. Would you have any objections to my proposing
this at the next ISO meeting, scheduled for XML 2005?

Martin Bryan

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