Re: [docbook] author

[Richard Hamilton <hamilton@xmlpress.net>]

Hi Mike,

I just checked the schema, and you're right, there is no schematron (or relaxng) rule prohibiting this. I don't remember any discussion of this possibility, so there may not have been any particular intention for allowing it.

In fact, it looks like you can have as many authorgroups and authors as you want, interspersed in any way you'd like:-). And, you can have an authorgroup that has just one author. All of those variations are valid according to the 5.0 and 5.1 schemas.

I actually think that's okay, though I take a fairly permissive view of schema validation in cases like this:-). I'm not sure what other members of the DocBook TC think; maybe one or more will chime in.

The standard stylesheets appear to favor authorgroup when they encounter both authorgroup and author. That is, from my quick test, it looks like they simply ignore author if an authorgroup exists (which is probably why your author disappeared). However, they try to handle multiple authorgroups.

All that said, it might make sense in your environment to either add a schematron rule that prohibits this or catch it in a stylesheet customization. That way, you won't lose any authors.

Best regards,
Dick Hamilton
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XML Press
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On Dec 16, 2015, at 12:31, maxwell <maxwell@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote:

> I have a question about the <author> element.  It can occur as a daughter of a bunch of elements, but there are two parents where its usage seems a bit unclear to me: <info> and <authorgroup>.  The intent is clear: <author> should appear under <authorgroup> "when a document has multiple authors or collabarators" (http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/authorgroup.html).  So in the context of a book or chapter or author, multiple authors should be under /book/info/authorgroup/. However, afaik there's nothing in the schema preventing one from having both /book/info/authorgroup/author and /book/info/author *in the same document*.  (It's not clear to me whether one could have multiple <author> daughters of /book/info/, or just one.  I think there can be multiples.)
> 
> What is the intent if there's an <author> under both paths?  Ideally, I guess they'd be combined in some smart way; or else there should be a warning.  The combination of course has to be handled by the particular app you're using to convert the XML into some other form.  But a warning--if appropriate--would come from the schemas.  (Probably not possible with rng; maybe there could be a schematron rule?)
> 
> The same thing happens with <editor> and <othercredit>, both of which can appear in the same places as <author>; and the same possibility of putting these elements under <someelement>/<authorgroup> or directly under <someelement> happens with <biblioentry> and probably several other places.
> 
> BTW, the question came up because we had <author> in both places, and I was trying to debug why someone's name wasn't showing up in the PDF.
> 
>   Mike Maxwell
>   University of Maryland
> 
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