Simple Registration Reporting

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Table of Contents

2. Data Element Specification

Data elements are grouped into categories for convenience. There is no other significance to the groupings.¶

Each data element conceptually represents the column heading in a printed report. It is a single unit of information that can be passed from the producer to the consumer. The primary purposes of the IANA registry of data elements are to ensure that each data element is assigned a unique name and that the syntax of each data element is specified.¶

The name of the data element MUST be unique and this characteristic MUST be enforced by registry. The name is used in the report definition (in the next section) to alert the consumer as to what to expect in the file and how to import the data element.¶

The field names MUST NOT contain any whitespace and MAY use US-ASCII underscores (_) as a separator.¶

The US-ASCII comma (,) and backslash (\) are special and MUST NOT appear in any field name or data element value. In order to include either character it must be quoted as follows.¶

• COMMA - to insert a comma precede it with a backslash thus (\,).¶
• BACKSLASH - to insert a backslash precede it with a backslash thus (\\).¶

The syntax of the data element MAY be whatever is appropriate for the information to be passed. In most cases it will be imported from other standard specifications where the data element is already defined for use in other protocols. In all cases the syntax restriction mentioned above MUST be respected.¶

The subsections below comprise an initial list of known data elements commonly being used between producers and consumers as of the date of publication of this document. The title of the subsection is the field name for the data element.¶

3. Report Definition Specification

Each report specification conceptually represents a file of comma separated values (commonly called a CSV file) where the values are selected from the data elements specified above. The first row of the file is a comma separated list of field names as specified in the data element registry. The remaining rows of the file are the unordered sets of data elements, one set per row, where each row is one transaction in the report.¶

Each data element conceptually represents the column heading in a printed report. The first row represents the column headings and each succeeding row represents a transaction of the report.¶

A consumer MUST be able to receive data elements that are not recognized and MAY skip them accordingly, both in the header row and in the transaction rows.¶

A report is specified in the report registry with two pieces of information. First is the name of the report. This can be whatever is appropriate as defined by the producer of the report. The name of the report MUST be unique and this characteristic MUST be enforced by registry.¶

Second is the ordered list of field names of what is included in the report. The field names MUST be listed in the data element registry specified above. The field names and the data MUST appear in the report in the order listed in the report registry.¶

The subsections below comprise an initial list of standard reports commonly being used between producers and consumers as of the data of publication of this document. The title of the subsection is the report name.¶

4. Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Roger Carney, Jody Kolker for their reviews and suggestions¶

5. IANA Considerations

This document asks IANA to create two new registries. Each registry is a first-come first-served registry.¶

DETAILS TO BE SPECIFIED AS THE DOCUMENT EVOLVES.¶

6. Security Considerations

TBD¶

7. Internationalization Considerations

The character encoding for the file contents MUST use UTF-8.¶

Appendix A. File Naming Convention

TBD on file naming convention suggestion¶

Authors' Addresses