I don't think I'd said it's text or binary, I'd consider it as having
mixed representation. Though I'll admit I don't think I've actually seen
such a format. It's almost always one or the other.
However, if you do run into this case, an alternative to choosing one of
those as the default and then switching at some point might be to create
separate schemas for the text part and the binary part, and then
including those in a main schema, for example:
file_format.dfdl.xsd:
<xs:include schemaLocation="file_format_text.dfdl.xsd" />
<xs:include schemaLocation="file_format_bin.dfdl.xsd" />
<xs:element name="FileFormat">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element ref="TextPart" />
<xs:element ref="BinaryPart" />
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>
This way file_format_text.dfdl.xsd and file_format_bin.dfdl.xsd can have
a different default representation propertie, which scopes over that
schema file so you never have to specify it again.
- Steve
On 9/15/20 6:40 AM, Roger L Costello wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> A file contains a long series of text data and at the end is binary data. The
> binary data is not encoded as base64 text or anything like that. It is raw,
> unfiltered, unencoded binary data.
>
> Is it a text file or a binary file?
>
> Should the DFDL schema specify representation="text" or
> representation="binary"?
>
> Or, should the DFDL schema specify representation="text" for the text part
> and then switch to representation="binary" for the binary part?
>
> All this time I have been thinking that a DFDL schema will have one
> dfdl:representation, But perhaps I am wrong. Have you ever used more than one
> dfdl:representation in a DFDL schema? If yes, then are the files it specifies
> some kind of a hybrid between text and binary?
>
> /Roger
>
