DOCBOOK: Re: reasoning behind index terms

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

/ "Matthew L. Avizinis" <mla@gleim.com> was heard to say:
|   What is the reasoning behind using all the index, indexdiv, primary,
| secondary, indexentry, etc. terms? (Is there a link to a webpage that

index starts an index.
indexdiv divides an index into sections.
indexentry is an entry in the index.

I think those are pretty clear.

Within an indexentry, the primary, secondary, and tertiary elements
are used in order to make sure that the index accurately reflects the
common understanding of an index.

The problem with

  <indexentry>
    <item>foo
      <item>bar</item>
    </item>
  </indexentry>

is two-fold.

First, did the indexer really mean that? Did they really mean to have
bar as a second level term, or did they intend for it to be a third
level term and accidently delete one?

Second, suppose you're trying to fix an index. You've printed it out
and gone through and found inconsistencies. It's a lot easier to find
the inconsistencies if they have distinct names rather than having to
count start tags.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Well-being is attained by little
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | and little, and nevertheless it is
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | no little thing itself.--Zen of
                                   | Citium