RE: [dita] Groups - Issue 17b: conref - with delta (applying chan ges) (IssueNumber17b.html) uploaded

I agree pretty much with the conclusions,
but a couple of clarifications on the route:

- the proposal does not include deletion,
so the errors are going to be those of extra content being invalid, not
required content being missing.

- about the only case in which the current
marker-based proposal does guarantee validity as currently stated is if
both the marker and the added element are of the same type. (Which coincidentally
are the examples used in the proposals :-). For example, adding an item
to a list, adding section after another section, etc. The basic reason
being that XML doesn't count well, and so if two are valid, many must be
valid, so the reuse can't be rendered invalid by adding more than two.

Is the proposal still useful with that
restriction? It would mean that you can't add a stepresult to a step during
conref, but you could add a second info element if one already exists...
and you can add more step elements, as long as one exists in the original...

So the proposal would let you:

- pull in content with replacements,
or with "more of the same" additions wherever they're valid (adding
more steps to a list, more sections before or after an existing one, etc.).

Michael Priestley

IBM DITA Architect

SWG Classification Schema PDT Lead



"Esrig, Bruce (Bruce)"
<> 

11/07/2005 02:54 PM

To

Michael Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA

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Subject

RE: [dita] Groups - Issue
17b: conref - with delta (applying chan        ges)
  (IssueNumber17b.html) uploaded

Hi Michael,

To summarize and extend some off-line discussions ...

The validity guarantee that is hoped for in this proposal is hard to provide.
An editing operation could delete a title or add an extra title, and it
would be impossible to determine whether the edit is valid without knowing
the context of the edit.

Stated more formally ...

Once the editing options go beyond the simple substitution that is supported
by conref in DITA 1.0, it seems that it's impossible to retain the ability
to

look only at the location that uses the pre-defined template and be able
to determine whether the result of the edit will be valid in context

unless

the location that uses the pre-defined template repeats the context that
is being pointed to.

In other words:

    (a) The sequence of nested elements that surrounds the using
location must match the corresponding sequence in the pre-defined template
and

    (b) The sequence of sibling elements that surrounds the using
location at the current nesting level must match the corresponding sequence
in the pre-defined template.

This could be cumbersome to maintain, but without it, a local check would
not suffice.

Best wishes,

Bruce Esrig

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Subject: [dita] Groups - Issue 17b: conref - with delta (applying

changes) (IssueNumber17b.html) uploaded

The document named Issue 17b: conref - with delta (applying changes)

(IssueNumber17b.html) has been submitted by Michael Priestley to the OASIS

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