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Subject: Re: [dita] DITA v1.2 Review | Propagating attribute values


Exactly. 

Cheers,

E.

On 8/26/10 12:42 PM, "Nitchie, Chris" <cnitchie@ptc.com> wrote:

> Eliot,
> 
> I agree that this is nonsensical:
> 
> <xref keyref="key-01" scope="external"/>
> 
> But this is not:
> 
> <xref keyref="key-01" href="http://www.example.com"; scope="external"/>
> 
> What you don't say explicitly, but what I take you to mean, is that in
> this case, the scope on the xref only applies if no definition exists
> for key-01, that is, only when the xref's href applies. At least, that's
> my interpretation (and why I said scope, format, and type are treated
> the same as href).
> 
> Chris
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eliot Kimber [mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 1:04 PM
> To: Nitchie, Chris; dita
> Subject: Re: [dita] DITA v1.2 Review | Propagating attribute values
> 
> On 8/26/10 11:44 AM, "Nitchie, Chris" <cnitchie@ptc.com> wrote:
> 
>> Eliot,
>> 
>> Thanks very much for the explanation. That makes a lot of sense, and
>> more or less matches my understanding. I still think scope, format,
> and
>> type should be treated the same as href since they're so tightly
>> interrelated, but otherwise I feel much better now.
> 
> @scope, @format, and @type are addressing attributes in that they serve
> to
> characterize the target resource (@format, @type) or characterize the
> address itself (@scope). So again it would not be sensible to have those
> attributes propagate from reference to referenced.
> 
> @scope is a bit problematic because its semantic is underspecified in
> DITA
> 1.2. Essentially, @scope only makes sense in the context of direct
> references to resources because the initial reference to a resource
> cannot
> (and should not) know whether the ultimate target is part of the
> reference's
> using map tree or not.
> 
> That is, given this xref:
> 
> <xref keyref="key-01" scope="external"/>
> 
> The @scope value is patent nonsense because the author has no way of
> knowing
> whether or not the resource ultimately addressed by the referenced key
> is or
> is not part of the map containing the <xref>, or if in fact the resource
> is
> a topic or non-DITA object at all, since it could be just text fetched
> from
> a keydef not bound to a resource at all.
> 
> The best a processor could do is compare the specified scope value on
> the
> reference with the ultimate scope value on the direct reference to the
> resource and give a warning if they don't match, but otherwise there's
> no
> point in specifying scope on a keyref because it cannot change the way
> the
> ultimately-addressed resource affects processing.
> 
> Because DITA 1.2 has no way to explicitly establish the key-definition
> context of a given key reference (in DITA 1.2 all key definitions are,
> by
> definition, made in the map tree that contains the key reference),
> there's
> no useful sense in which a key reference can have a scope other than
> "local", since there's no way to indicate you are referencing a key
> defined
> in a peer or external key space (separate map tree).
> 
> A key *definition* that specifies @href may usefully indicate @scope
> since
> it knows what the relationship of a directly-referenced resource is
> relative
> to its own containing map tree. But no reference to that key can
> possibly
> know, for sure, what that relationship is.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Eliot
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Eliot Kimber
> Senior Solutions Architect
> "Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
> Main: 512.554.9368
> www.reallysi.com
> www.rsuitecms.com
> 

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 512.554.9368
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com



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