RE: [dita] conref.dita editorial review

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Nevin (bnevin) [mailto:bnevin@cisco.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 2009 November 17 11:24
> To: dita
> Subject: [dita] conref.dita editorial review
> 
> I have committed the overview topic titled "Use by reference" to SVN as
> a revision of conref.dita.
> 
> Four items need particular attention. They are indicated in XML
> comments.
> 
> 1. The question after the following paragraph:
> 
>    If the referenced element has a conref attribute specified, the
>    above rules should be applied recursively with the resolved element
>    from one  referencing/referenced combination becoming  one of the
>    two  elements participating in  the next referencing/referenced
>    combination. The result should preserve without generalization all
>    elements that are valid in the originating context, even if they
>    are not valid in an intermediate context. For example, if topicA
>    and topicC allow highlighting, and topicB does not, then a content
>    reference chain of topicA>topicB->topicC should preserve any
>    highlighting elements in the referenced content. The result is the
>    same as if the conref pairs are resolved recursively starting from
>    the referencing element.
>    <!--What do you mean "as if"? There's been no mention of the
>    converse. Should this say "the result is the same whether the
>    recursive resolution of conref pairs starts from the referencing
>    element or from the referenced element"?-->

What we were trying to say is that we don't care how the implementation
does it, but however it is done, the result should be equivalent to the
result gotten by resolving the conref pairs recursively starting from
the referencing element.

If the "as if" wording causes confusion for some, another suggestion 
for that sentence is:

    An implementation is free to use any method for resolving such
    conrefs as long as the result is equivalent to the result gotten
    by resolving the conref pairs recursively starting from the
    referencing element.

paul