Lists - information overflow

[Svante Schubert <svante.schubert@gmail.com>]

The list topic really can cause some headache, but as I started it, allow me to provide an update.
I have asked myself, do we need to preserve all list style information provided by a list hierarchy on a paragraph?
For instance, on paragraph on the tenth list level in ODF there can be referenced up to eleven different list styles.

<text:list text:style-name="L1">
    <text:list-item text:style-override="L2">
        <text:list text:style-name="L3">
            <text:list-item text:style-override="L4">
                <text:list text:style-name="L5">
                    <text:list-item text:style-override="L6">
                        <text:list text:style-name="L7">
                            <text:list-item text:style-override="L8">
                                <text:list text:style-name="L9">
                                    <text:list-item text:style-override="L10">
                                        <text:p text:style-name="P1-referencing-to-L11">Hello list!</text:p>
                                    </text:list-item>                               
                                </text:list>
                            </text:list-item>
                        </text:list>
                    </text:list-item>
                </text:list>
            </text:list-item>
        </text:list>
    </text:list-item>
</text:list>

Each may offer a style definition for each of the list level - for instance OpenOffice support 10 list level in the UI - this may result into a maximum of 110 list styles in total, while only 1 is being applicable at the paragraph.
(NOTE: In theory the attribute @text:level is not restricted to 10 and may be any arbitrary positive integer. But so does @text:outline-level for heading, still in HTML 5 it can only have 6 levels.)

The inverse question is: What do I lose, what is the mandatory required information to provide?
For instance, if I only provide the one style being applied, i.e. the style definition of the tenth level first being found in a list style looking in that order: L10, L9, L8, L7, L6, L5, L4, L3, L2, L1, L11.

I came to the following conclusion:

1. All template list styles (those from the styles.xml) should be provided by operations, when wiring an ODF document by operations over the net. In case an application allows the choice of existing predefined list styles.
   (We might even specify default styles in the standard to guarantee a consistent look and feel for ODF documents)
   
2. Even if there is only one paragraph in the above example, which only uses one list level style of a list style, the complete set of list definition level 1 to 10 needs to be wired gathered from the list hierarchy, otherwise the run-time behavior would differ. For instance if a user expands the list (usually pressing CR after an existing list item, here "Hello list!" and lowers the list level a new list level style would be applied. Which should be used? In this case the 9th list level style from the above example. Therefore all available list level definition have to be provided by an operation.
   

In other words a normalized form (simplified with the same information set) of the above structure could be:
<text:list style="L12">
    <text:list-item>
        <text:list>
            <text:list-item>
                <text:list>
                    <text:list-item>
                        <text:list>
                            <text:list-item>
                                <text:list>
                                    <text:list-item>
                                        <text:p>Hello list!</text:p>
                                    </text:list-item>                              
                                </text:list>
                            </text:list-item>
                        </text:list>
                    </text:list-item>
                </text:list>
            </text:list-item>
        </text:list>
    </text:list-item>
</text:list>

While the list style name "L12" is arbitrary, the style would have gathered all gathered list levels from the previous lists into a single one.

Do I miss something? What's your opinion? I am awaiting your feed-back!

PS: The above example is highly theoretical, especially as the operations are more likely being used in a real-world collaborating context, but it helped me to understand lists and their operations in general.

Best regards,
Svante