Re: [dita] Question on key resolution for complex <topicmeta>content

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

My focus was on determining the effective bindings of key names to
resources, not the details of determining the effective link text, which can
be viewed as a separate problem (in so far as you can't worry about it until
you determine which topicref is the effective definition for a given key
name).

I'll let Robert and Michael speak to Su-Laine's questions as I had less
involvement in that aspect of the key reference facility.

Cheers,

Eliot

On 2/7/11 8:23 PM, "Su-Laine Yeo" <su-laine.yeo@justsystems.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> It is not entirely clear to my team, either from the spec or from Eliot's
> Understanding DITA Keys and Key Spaces article, how keys should be resolved if
> the <topicmeta> element within a <keydef> contains complex content.
> 
> The DITA 1.2 spec says:
> 
> "When a key definition has a <topicmeta> subelement, elements that refer to
> that key and that are empty may get their effective content from the first
> matching subelement of the <topicmeta> subelement of the key-defining
> topicref... For elements that in addition to @keyref or @conkeyref do specify
> an @href attribute (such as author, data, data-about, image, link, lq, navref,
> publisher, source, topicref, xref, and their specializations), matching
> content includes all elements from within the key definition element that are
> in valid context within the key reference. Elements that are invalid within
> the key reference element directly or after generalization are not included or
> are filtered out."
> 
> The first sentence says that the effective content is the "first matching"
> subelement in <topicmeta>. Does "first matching" "first element of exactly the
> same element type as the element which refers to the key," or does it mean
> something else?
> 
> The second sentence seems to say that the effective content should include
> multiple elements from <topicmeta> if they are valid in element which refers
> to the key. E.g. say a <xref> element is resolved using a keydef, and that
> keydef contains the following subelements:
> 
> <topicmeta> 
> <shortdesc>My short description content</shortdesc>
> <keywords><keyword>keyword1</keyword><indexterm>indexterm1</indexterm></keywor
> ds>
> <keywords><keyword>keyword2</keyword><indexterm>indexterm2</indexterm></keywor
> ds>
> </topicmeta>
> 
> 
> Should the processor should resolve this as:
> 
> Option 1:
> <xref></xref>
> 
> Or should the processor resolve it as:
> 
> Option 2:
> <xref>
> <keyword>keyword1</keyword>
> </xref>
> 
> Or as: 
> 
> Option 3:
> <xref>
> <keyword>keyword1</keyword><indexterm>indexterm1</indexterm>
> </xref>
> 
> Or as: 
> 
> Option 4:
> <xref> 
> <keyword>keyword1</keyword><indexterm>indexterm1</indexterm>
> <keyword>keyword2</keyword><indexterm>indexterm2</indexterm>
> </xref>
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Su-Laine
> 
> Su-Laine Yeo
> Solutions Consultant
> 
> JustSystems Canada, Inc.
> Office: 1 (778) 327-6356
> syeo@justsystems.com <mailto:syeo@justsystems.com>
>  

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