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Subject: Re: [office-metadata] Overlapping fields question


Florian,

OK, I think I now understand the question of needing a paragraph break 
in a field.

Next question: What applications require a paragraph break in a field?

Followup question: Is it possible to create separate fields rather than 
spanning the paragraph break?

Thinking that even if some applications (answer to the first question) 
do have fields that span paragraph breaks, it should be possible to 
split the field to avoid the paragraph break in the field. This is an 
old technique for avoiding overlapping markup. In the markup case, one 
still had to join the fragments together, so there may be a similar 
overhead for solving the paragraph break in a field issue this way.

Hmmm, so we could:

1. Have two separate and distinct fields

2. Have two separate and distinct fields that are linked and content 
apportioned between them. (I mention this only for completeness. I can 
see real issues in terms of how to specify that behavior.)

3. Span paragraph breaks in fields (but as you note, that can lead to 
processing issues).

Depending on its rate of occurrence, I suspect that #1 would be my 
preference. That recognizes the problem but puts the burden on those who 
need that particular feature. When that allocation is appropriate is a 
real judgment call of the TC. There are lots of cases that we need to 
allow for but it doesn't mean we have to impose burdens on routine 
processing to accomodate them.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick


Florian Reuter wrote:

>Hi Patrick,
>
>sorry for not beeing clear. What I'm asking for is not "overlapping fields". In fact fields should never overlap ;-) I'm
>demanding that fields may containt a paragraph break.
>
>To explain my objectives please let me give you a sample. Sometimes fields span accross paragraph boundaries, as in the
>following sample
>
>Description: _________________________
>___________________________________
>___________________________________
>
>which when filled out lead to
>
>Description: <field>Here should be a description.
>Which is explained for precise in the following paragraphs.</field>
>
>When encoded in ODF I'll look like this
>
><text:p>Description: <field-start/>Here should be a description.</text:p>
><text:p>Which is explained for precise in the following paragraphs.<field-end/></text:p>
>
>So the basic problem is: What is when a field content contains a paragraph break. 
>
>Fields itself should not be able to be nested. Just be able to span accross paragraph boundaries...
>
>This is hard to validate i.e. speficy in the ODF schema, this is why Svante discourages the use of paragraph breaks
>within a field content. I entirely understand his point of view.
>
>However I'm aware of some applications which actually need paragraph-breaks in fields.
>
>~Florian
>
>
>
>  
>
>>>>Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> 03/27/07 2:51 PM >>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>Florian,
>
>I am trying to catch up on my email after three days of ISO meetings in 
>Oslo.
>
>Sorry but it isn't clear to me what "other fields" are in question that 
>would need a text-meta-field-start/end element.
>
>What "other fields" did you have in mind?
>
>Hope you are having a great day!
>
>Patrick
>
>  
>

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Patrick@Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work! 




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