Re: "." vs. ".*" (was FSL2 Feed?)

Chris,

>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 15:25:07 -0400
>From: Chris Herbster <herbstec@xxxxxxxx>
>To: Steve Emmerson <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: "." vs. ".*" (was FSL2 Feed?)

The above message contained the following:

> Just curious, but wouldn't it be difficult to process such a data 
> element if it did have an empty identifier?

I'd think so but, strictly speaking, that would be the decoder's
problem.

> Is there any difference in efficiency between "." and ".*" or are they 
> essentially the same?

They're essentially the same if you ignore the possibility of empty
product-identifiers.

Regards,
Steve Emmerson