RE: what does "finite-length" mean?

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Morris Matsa [SMTP:mmatsa@us.ibm.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, December 19, 2000 3:28 PM
> To:	www-xml-schema-comments@w3.org
> Subject:	what does "finite-length" mean?
> 
Thank you for your comment.

> The term "finite-length" is used many times in part 2 of the spec, but
> never defined.  It seems implied that "finite-length" means "of a length
> which is any non-negative integer."  If you look up the mathematical
> definition of "finite"
> (http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=finite) you find many
> options which seem to indicate ("1.      Having a positive or negative
> numerical value; not zero.") that zero is not included.  This would imply
> that lists, strings, decimals, binary values, etc. are not allowed to be
> empty.  Furthermore, some types (e.g. IDREFS
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#IDREFS) specify that the value space is
> a
> finite-length sequence of elements, but the lexical space has no such
> constraint (being a "set of whitespace separated tokens").  It would seem
> that this term should be used either for both value space and lexical
> space, or neither, in the case of a list type.  My question is what the
> actual meaning in the spec is for "finite-length" and I suggest that it is
> defined in the spec.
> 
The draft now clarifies that "finite-length" includes lists of length 0.

> A related question:  Lists are a "finite-length" sequence of values.
> (2.5.1
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#atomic-vs-list and 3.1
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#namespaces), alternatively their value
> space is composed of "finite" sequences of values (5.1.2
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#derivation-by-list).  This implies that
> there is no difference between a "finite-length sequence" and a "finite
> sequence".  Am I correct?  If so, why are they worded differently?
> 
The wording has been changed to consistently use "finite-length".

thank you,

pvb

Received on Thursday, 15 February 2001 20:45:40 UTC