Required attributes and the DITA reference

["Chris Wong" <cwong@idiominc.com>]

Sorry if this was already noticed before. A colleague pointed out that according to the DITA language references for both pre-1.0 and DITA 1.0,  topic/@id is optional:

 

Name	Description	Data Type	Default Value	Required?
id	An anchor point. This ID is the target for references by href and conref attributes, and for external applications that refer to DITA content.	ID	#IMPLIED	boolean: no

 

Of course, this attribute is actually required. From topic.mod:

<!ATTLIST topic           id ID #REQUIRED
...
>

This  is also true of concept, task and reference.

 

Chris