Re: [dita] referencing a bookmap from a map

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

On 6/12/09 4:31 PM, "Michael Priestley" <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com> wrote:

> So with respect to
> 
>>> Proposal 12055 is clear about what we do in the specialized map to
>>> generic map case and also about the specialized map to specialized
>>> map case, but we're not sure what should happen when a generic map
>>> references a specialized map.
> 
> You are saying that we shouldn't say? What about the rest of the behaviors
> prescribed in 12055?

I see the issue as being very simple: either *require* generalization of
referenced topicrefs or *don't*.

If you don't require generalization then there's nothing more to say beyond
"it's up to processors to make sense of the result or not, as they choose".

I also submit that all discussion of output-specific processing applied to
the combined map is not relevant to this discussion, because that level of
processing is entirely implementation specific.

For example, your question about how a processor of a map that references
two bookmaps handles the indexes of both bookmaps makes several assumptions
about the nature of the processing that are not warranted, such as that the
entire result map is processed as a unit or that index processing is a
monolithic process or even that index processing is done at all. If the
processing happens to be defined such that each referenced bookmap is still
processed individually for the purposes of creating say pages from it, then
there's no practical problem but I could just as easily implement a
multi-bookmap indexing process that produced a master index or a combined
index or whatever.

My point is that the semantics of map processing for producing results is
simply too unbounded for it to make any sense for the spec to say anything
about it.

The best we can do is say what the effective *map*looks like in terms of the
propagation or effective values of properties, which is what I understand
12055 to be doing.

Maybe the solution is to simply say:

"When a topicref points to a map with format="ditamap" the effective
topicrefs reflect the most-specialized topicrefs involved. Note that because
map-to-map references are logical relationships rather than content
references, it is not a DITA requirement that the effective map conform to
the DTD or schema of the referencing map. However, processors may report
such maps as processor errors, for example, if a particular combination of
maps cannot be processed meaningfully by the processor."

By always reflecting the most-specialized form no information is lost but
normal generalized processing can be applied just as it can for any other
specialized elements. By allowing processors to report processor errors we
remove the obligation to try to make sense of (to the processor)
non-sensical cases.

Cheers,

Eliot

----
Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
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