- From: Warn, Simon (GEIS) <Simon.Warn@geis.ge.com>
- Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 09:22:11 -0500
- To: "'www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org'" <www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org>
Hi All, Looking through the specification I noticed there is no explicit minLength facet. I understand from Paul (Biron) that the following workaround is available: "That said, there is a workaround in the current draft for generating subtypes of string that have a minimum length (say, minLenght=32), using the pattern facet, as in <datatype name="myString"> <basetype name="string"/> <pattern>[.\n]{32,}</pattern> </datatype> That is, we generate a subtype of string which is constrained by the regular expression given in the pattern facet. The regular expression in this case says: "match any character (including newline) at least 32 times"." While this might work I still feel it would be nice to have an explicit minlength facet. This would be very useful in EDI as there are numerous examples (particularly in the ANSI X12 standard) of data elements which have unusual min\max length definitions. Some examples are Part name 3-16, ID Code 2-17, City Name 2-30 and Occupation Code 4-6. I could go on but I am sure you get the picture. Even in the non-EDI world the minlength could be useful. I have often been asked to enter passwords which must have a minimum length. Finally it would balance up the specification as MaxInclusive and MaxExclusive have their Min. equivalents. Why not MaxLength? Regards, Simon Warn p.s. Why can't "Maxoccurs" in the "Element" and "Group" elements take values other than "1" or "*"? This would be extremely useful for EDI where Segment and Loop/Group occurrences are strictly defined.
Received on Tuesday, 23 November 1999 09:22:54 UTC