Standards » Data Area » DFDL WG

I am not sure this is correct - The description says %ES entity is not allowed, and if empty string is not allowed then there is no way to use empty string to mean false. This seems like potentially useful functionality.

If we disallow empty string, then should we allow %ES; entity for expressing that empty means false?

I don't think using empty string or ES to indicate false is a good idea. It clashes with the use of empty string to indicate an optional element is not present, or to indicate a required element can take a default value. If you have such an element and you want empty string to mean false, then use a default value of false.

After review, we concluded that we don't have a compelling use case yet for allowing empty-string to mean anything; hence,
we are back to just not allowing empty string (or %ES;) as the value of these properties, and clarifying the spec accordingly.