So both of anyEmpty and trailingEmpty are used by EDIFACT. The X12 EDI format, which is conceptually similar uses trailingEmptyStrict.
I don't know of any publicly available X12 DFDL schema, but IBM has some tutorial about X12 here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/integration-bus/9.0.0?topic=SSMKHH_9.0.0/com.ibm.etools.mft.samples.x12.doc/doc/overview.htm Here's a nice example of what an X12 EDI Purchase Order looks like: https://www.1edisource.com/resources/edi-transactions-sets/edi-850/ X12 is an ANSI Standard, mostly used by US companies domestically and internationally. I've ready that non-US companies use UN/EDIFACT, for which there is a demo (partial) DFDL Schema on github. I took at look at EDIFACT. The schema uses an old now-obsolete DFDL property called separatorPolicy='suppressed' which is the same thing as the new property separatorSuppressionPolicy="anyEmpty". This is for the sequence of lines (segments) that begin with 3 character identifiers. Using 'anyEmpty' means blank lines are not allowed. separatorPolicy="suppressedAtEndLax" (now separatorSuppressionPolicy='trailingEmpty') is used within a line (segment) Here's a snippet of one EDIFACT message (not a whole message) from the DFDL Schemas github site. UNA:+.?*' UNB+UNOC:4+5790000274017:14+5708601000836:14+990420:1137+17++INVOIC++++1' UNH+30+INVOIC:D:03B:UN' BGM+380+539602' DTM+137:19990420:102' RFF+CO:01671727' NAD+BY+5708601000836::9' RFF+VA:UK37499919' NAD+SU++IBM UK' RFF+VA:UK19430839' RFF+ADE:00000767' NAD+DP+++MyCompany+MyStreet+MyTown++1234+UK' CUX+2:GBP:9' LIN+1++V0370246:IN' IMD+F++:::Collectors edition of The Hobbit with Tolkien?'s original colours on sleeve' QTY+47:5:PCE' .... ________________________________ From: Roger L Costello <coste...@mitre.org> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2021 10:22 AM To: users@daffodil.apache.org <users@daffodil.apache.org> Subject: Only two meaningful values of separatorSuppressionPolicy? Hi Folks, I think these are the only meaningful values of separatorSuppressionPolicy: trailingEmptyStrict trailingEmpty With those, a data format designer can specify what instances are legal and what instances are illegal. For example, suppose a data format specifies that instances contain 1-5 string data items separated by forward slashes. If the data format designer wants to prohibit instances from having empty trailing separators like this: a/b/// then the data format designer specifies separatorSuppressionPolicy=trailingEmptyStrict If the data format designer wants to allow empty trailing separators, then the data format designer specifies separatorSuppressionPolicy=trailingEmpty I don't think the other values of separatorSuppressionPolicy are meaningful. I am eager to be proven wrong. /Roger
