[DITA 1.2] Feature request: generic collation element

[Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com]

DITA Proposed Feature # XX

Allow any element to override its collation value

Longer description
The index-sort-as element gives indexterms the ability to override how the index term is treated when alphabetically sorting the generated index. This is useful for non-alphabetic terms:
<indexterm>1927<index-sort-as>Nineteen Twenty-Seven</index-sort-as></indexterm>
It is also crucial for languages such as Japanese where there is not a one-to-one relationship between orthography and pronunciation.
This proposal suggests a similar mechanism for elements other than indexterm, for other situations when a processor performs sorting or indexing or collation. The suggested name for the element is collate-as. Examples of markup:

• <codeph>int fopen(const char *f);<collate-as>fopen</collate-as></codeph>
• <lq><lines>The wasp, he is a nasty one,
  He scavenges and thrives.
  Unlike the honest honey-bee,
  He doesn't care for hives.
  - Pam Ayres<collate-as>Wasp, he is a nasty one, The</collate-as></lines></lq>
• Pongo is a character in <cite>101 Dalmatians<collate-as>One Hundred and One Dalmatians</collate-as></cite>.

Scope

Trivial. Can be done as a specialization of data, which is in almost every elements' content model. May benefit from a DITA 1.2 proposal which limits specializations to certain elements.

Use Case

Any case where processing auto-generates or re-orders items based on those items' string values. Here are two examples.

Alphabetization of glossary entries
Glossaries are usually sorted based on their title. When the title cannot indicate where the entry should appear in the glossary, use collate-as:
<glossentry>
 <title>100 Years' War<collate-as>Hundred Years War</collate-as></title>
 <glossdef>A conflict between England and France in the Middle Ages.</glossdef>
</glossentry>
Sorting lists and tables
When a list or table is long, authors may want to keep its entries in alphabetical order. This is easy until the list or table contains items brought in by conref. A specialized processor could handle the sorting, with collate-as indicating how the item is to be alphabetized:
<ul-sorted>
 <li>Pink Floyd</li>
 <li>U2</li>
 <li conref="sometopic.xml#topicid/someartist"/>
 <li>Alan Parsons<collate-as>Parsons, Alan</collate-as></li>
 <li>The Alan Parsons Project<collate-as>Parsons, Alan</collate-as></li>
 <li conref="someothertopic.xml#topicid/someotherartist"/>
 <!-- Hundreds more here. -->
</ul-sorted>
Technical Requirements

If implemented as a specialization, new DTD/Schema files and alterations to the topic shells. Toolkit implementations need to ignore the collate-as element (which they do for data anyway) except where they are looking for the collation value of an element.

Costs

Toolkits which use strings for collation purposes need to compare the contents of collate-as instead of its container element where it exists. XSLT for this is a simple change.

Benefits

Toolkits will be able to correctly sort glossaries with unusual titles. Japanese users will get more benefit from this feature than others. The index-sort-as element may be unifiable with collate-as.

Time Required

1 day to create specialization. 1 day to document.
--
Deborah Pickett
Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com

dita-proposal-collation.xml