RE: [docbook-tc] Fw: [docbook] informaltable inside table

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

The CALS table model does not support tables within 
entry.  There is something called entrytable, but
that's not the same thing (and it's not supported
by any tools of which I am aware).

So I think it's a bug if table is allowed within entry.

paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Stayton [mailto:bobs@sagehill.net]
> Sent: Friday, 2010 February 26 18:44
> To: DocBook Technical Committee
> Subject: [docbook-tc] Fw: [docbook] informaltable inside table
> 
> This message raised an issue that I'm not understanding.  It appears
> that the Cals
> table <entry> element in DocBook 5 does indeed permit <table>, but not
> <informaltable>.  I don't remember allowing <table> inside <entry>, so
> I'm wondering if this is a bug?
> 
> Bob Stayton
> Sagehill Enterprises
> bobs@sagehill.net
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "maxwell" <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu>
> To: <docbook@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 7:28 AM
> Subject: [docbook] informaltable inside table
> 
> 
> We're using DocBook 5 to write grammars, and one of the constructs we
> use
> a lot is tables.  These are mostly used to display paradigms, and
> frequently a cell in a paradigm needs to display several kinds of
> information.  An example cell might look like this:
> 
>    ko'tan   k-o'tan
>             my-heart
> 
> (Actually, the grammar we're using now has an Arabic script form on the
> left and its romanized form on the right, but I don't trust email to
> transmit that correctly.)  Some cells are more complex, but the general
> point is that because we want things to line up vertically (and other
> alignment issues), the obvious solution is to use some kind of a table
> inside these table cells.
> 
> The most obvious solution would be to make the cells be <entrytbl>s
> instead of <entry>s.  That didn't work, because in some cases we need
> to
> have paradigm cells span columns and/or rows.  (This happens when a
> single
> form in a language has more than one use in the language.  An example
> would
> be standard Spanish, where a present tense verb ending in -an or -en is
> used for both second and third person plural.)  While <entrytbl>s can
> span
> columns, the DocBook standard (and the CALS standard on which it is
> based)
> doesn't allow them to span rows.
> 
> So the next solution would be to put a <table> or an <informaltable>
> inside an <entry>, thus:
>    <table>
>      ...
>        <entry>
>           <table>...</table>
>        </entry>
>    </table>
> This is perfectly possible, but it forces us to put a <title> in the
> inner
> <table>, which we don't want.  We do want <title>s on the outer table,
> so I
> thought this would work:
>    <table>
>      ...
>        <entry>
>           <informaltable>...</informaltable>
>        </entry>
>    </table>
> Unfortunately, DocBook forbids this: "informaltable must not occur in
> the
> descendants of table." That comes from
> http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/cals.table.html; there is also a
> schematron rule enforcing this at
> http://www.docbook.org/xml/5.0/sch/docbook.sch:
>    <s:rule context="db:table">
>      ...
>      <s:assert test="not(.//db:informaltable)">
>      informaltable must not occur in the descendants of table
>      </s:assert>
>      ...
>    </s:rule>
> 
> What is the reason for preventing <informaltable>s from appearing as a
> descendant of <table>?  This limitation doesn't appear to come from the
> CALS standard, which does not (AFAICT) define <informaltable>.  It
> seems to
> make good sense (to me!) to allow tables without titles inside of
> tables
> with titles; in fact, I can't think of a situation where I would want a
> <table> with a <title> to be embedded inside another <table>.
> 
> In sum, as long as a <table> can be embedded inside an <entry>, I think
> it
> should be possible to embed an <informaltable> there too.  I'm posting
> here
> first in case there's some good reason that I can't think of for not
> allowing this; I'll submit an RFE later, if I don't get push back.
> 
>    Mike Maxwell
> 
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