RE: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref

["Su-Laine Yeo" <su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com>]

I'm having one of those, "this can't be right" moments. Either I've
completely misunderstood something or we have a problem. 

Consider this very common use of conref: You have a list of product
names, with each product name in a <ph> element. Your <ph> elements that
contain product names are all stored in a <topic> element within a
product names file, which uses the ditabase DTD. With DITA 1.1 you can
conref those product names into any topic type. 

Say you have a task written in DITA 1.1 which includes a conref pointing
to a product name in the product names file. What is going to happen
when you upgrade your DTDs to DITA 1.2? If I understand the way
constraints on conref are supposed to work, that conref is going to be
considered invalid even though <ph> has exactly the same content model
in <task> as it does in <topic>. Is that correct?

Regards,
Su-Laine

Su-Laine Yeo
Interaction Design Specialist 
JustSystems Canada, Inc.
Office: 778-327-6356 
syeo@justsystems.com
www.justsystems.com 






-----Original Message-----
From: ekimber [mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 3:53 PM
To: JoAnn Hackos; Su-Laine Yeo; Michael Priestley; rob@ascan.ca
Cc: dita; Ogden, Jeff
Subject: Re: [dita] Why There are Constraints on Conref

On 9/25/09 5:31 PM, "JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>
wrote:

> Are we clear in saying that one cannot conref between Task and General
> Task at all? or only from Task to General Task? Is it possible to
conref
> from General Task to Task?
> 
> From loose to more constrained, will the conref work?
> So can I conref a prereq from General Task to a prereq to Task but not
> vice versa? 
> 
> But, I cannot conref a <step> from Task to General Task even though
they
> are in both models?
> 
> Would someone please state all the use cases simply? I'm trying to be
> clear in writing the arch spec and the feature description and I'm
still
> confused by all the rhetoric being flung around.

Give a strict task and a general task:

1. Can conref elements from strict task into general task
2. Cannot conref elements from general task into strict task

That is, you can *always* conref more-constrained elements into
less-constrained elements. You can *never* conref less-constrained
elements
into more-constrained elements.

Cheers,

Eliot
----
Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
email:  ekimber@reallysi.com <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com>
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