Re: "an empty value - valid for hexBinary?"

I think it is valid!  The spec says [1]

[Definition:]   hexBinary represents arbitrary hex-encoded binary data. 
The ˇvalue spaceˇ of hexBinary is the set of finite-length sequences of 
binary octets.

That includes the empty sequence as well!

Furthermore, the Second Edition of XMLSchema [2] has a regular 
expression for base64Binary which explicitly allows empty (base64) 
encodings.  hexBinary is just another encoding of byte sequences.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#hexBinary
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/PER-xmlschema-2-20040318/#base64Binary

-Anli

On 8/30/2004 6:08 AM, Kasimier Buchcik wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> does the built-in primitive datatype "hexBinary" allow an empty value?
> 
> I noticed that Xerces-J 2.5.1 does not bark on an empty element of type 
> "hexBinary" (<foo/>), but MS 4.0 does. I did not found an indication in 
> the spec for the empty value to be valid, so I wonder if it's just a 
> Xerces bug.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Kasimier
> 
> 


-- 
Anli Shundi					ashundi@tibco.com
TIBCO Software Inc.				office: (919) 969-6518
www.tibco.com

Received on Monday, 30 August 2004 14:17:04 UTC