Re: DOCBOOK: e 2.71828

[Jeff Rancier <jeff.rancier@softechnics.com>]

Maybe just inserting a emphasis element in the phrase:

<phrase><emphasis>e</emphasis></phrase>

Would do it given there is ISO entity for logbase.


Thanks.
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 Jeff Rancier                         jeff.rancier@softechnics.com

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elliotte Rusty Harold" <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>
To: <docbook@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 11:33 AM
Subject: DOCBOOK: e 2.71828


I have a need to include the mathematical constant e, 2.71828..., the 
base of the natural logarithms, in a book I'm writing. According to 
the Unicode folks, they have no special character for this and none 
is needed. I should just use the normal ASCII e. That's simple enough.

In typesetting a mathematical constant of this nature is normally 
italicized so it's not just plain text. How should I represent this 
in DocBook?

<inlineequation>e</inlineequation> is not valid because the 
inlineequation element can't contain PCDATA.

The best I can figure is

<inlineequation>
   <inlinemediaobject>
     <textobject>
       <phrase>e</phrase>
     </textobject>
   </inlinemediaobject>
</inlineequation>

which really seems excessively complicated. Going to MathML seems 
even worse. Is this really the best I can do?
-- 

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