blog/data/2017-02-21-ooxml-undefined.txt

   1 Title: Detect OOXML files with undefined behaviour?
   2 Tags: english, nuug, standard
   3 Date: 2017-02-21 00:20
   4
   5 <p>I just noticed
   6 <a href="http://www.arkivrad.no/aktuelt/riksarkivarens-forskrift-pa-horing">the
   7 new Norwegian proposal for archiving rules in the goverment</a> list
   8 <a href="http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm">ECMA-376</a>
   9 / ISO/IEC 29500 (aka OOXML) as valid formats to put in long term
  10 storage.  Luckily such files will only be accepted based on
  11 pre-approval from the National Archive.  Allowing OOXML files to be
  12 used for long term storage might seem like a good idea as long as we
  13 forget that there are plenty of ways for a "valid" OOXML document to
  14 have content with no defined interpretation in the standard, which
  15 lead to a question and an idea.</p>
  16
  17 <p>Is there any tool to detect if a OOXML document depend on such
  18 undefined behaviour?  It would be useful for the National Archive (and
  19 anyone else interested in verifying that a document is well defined)
  20 to have such tool available when considering to approve the use of
  21 OOXML.  I'm aware of the
  22 <a href="https://github.com/arlm/officeotron/">officeotron OOXML
  23 validator</a>, but do not know how complete it is nor if it will
  24 report use of undefined behaviour.  Are there other similar tools
  25 available?  Please send me an email if you know of any such tool.</p>