Re: [dita] Versioned Public IDs: why only shells?

[Robert D Anderson <robander@us.ibm.com>]

This will be changed in DITA 1.2 -- I think it was the first item to make
it through the approval list.

For what it's worth, the expectation with the DITA 1.1 catalog and public
IDs was that the versioned identifier can be used to locate the DTD, and
local references should then do the rest. That is - once you find the DITA
1.1 concept.dtd, the 1.1 version of concept.mod can be located because it's
in the same directory, and that DTD imbeds it with the simple "concept.mod"
reference. The 1.0 version of concept.mod will be over in another location
with the 1.0 version of concept.dtd. This won't work for every tool or
every situation, which is why it is being updated in 1.2.

Robert D Anderson
IBM Authoring Tools Development
Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
(507) 253-8787, T/L 553-8787 (Good Monday & Thursday)


                                                                           
             Deborah_Pickett@m                                             
             oldflow.com                                                   
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             07/31/2007 12:49          dita@lists.oasis-open.org           
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                                                                   Subject 
                                       [dita] Versioned Public IDs: why    
                                       only shells?                        
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





I'd like to know if this is deliberate, or an oversight, or Not The TC's
Problem.

So we have versioned public IDs for DTD shells now:
  "-//OASIS//DTD DITA 1.1 Concept//EN"
Good, that helps interoperability when not everyone has upgraded to DITA
1.1.

But I don't see versioned public IDs for the elements/entities files:
  "-//OASIS//ELEMENTS DITA Concept//EN"
but not
  "-//OASIS//ELEMENTS DITA 1.1 Concept//EN"

Why?  Are the contents of the modules guaranteed not to change, ever?  It
seems that they already have changed from 1.0 to 1.1.

I can imagine situations where I will be using both a DITA 1.0 Concept
shell, and a DITA 1.1 Concept shell, at different times.  Each shell DTD
contains the lines:
<!ENTITY % concept-typemod
                        PUBLIC
"-//OASIS//ELEMENTS DITA Concept//EN"
"concept.mod"                                                        >
%concept-typemod;

By not having a versioned public ID for "-//OASIS//ELEMENTS DITA
Concept//EN", I can't select a 1.0 concept.mod vs. a 1.1 concept.mod except
by having no catalog entry for "-//OASIS//ELEMENTS DITA Concept//EN",
allowing the public ID lookup to fail and to fall back to the system ID,
which I can arrange to be in separate directories.  But then I have to have
a concept.mod in every directory that has a shell DTD, including my own
company-specific stuff.

--
Deborah Pickett
Information Architect, Moldflow Corporation, Melbourne
Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com