Just to check - how common is it for
a conref'd element to contain internal elements that reference each other?
It seems like we're dealing with an edge case of an edge case.
I'm guessing it could happen - maybe
in a large table with multiple footnote definitions, and the whole table
gets conref'd - but I wouldn't think it was common.
Also, Rob just to clarify - any fix
would be applied at processing time, and not to the original source. We're
not talking about touching or editing the source.
This is the way I'm thinking of it:
1- main case: you conref in something,
it doesn't contain elements with ids, or the ids are unique in the new
context - no problem
2- exception: the thing you conref'd
in contains an id that's already in use by the conreffing topic or map
- adjust the id of the thing being pulled in, since we know it's not being
referenced, and the other (local) id might be - eg by another topic or
map
3- extra exception: the thing you conref'd
in contains both an id, and a reference to the id - so adjust them both
(you'd need to adjust the reference anyway) - again, preserving the id
of the local element since it could be referenced by some other topic we're
not aware of.
As Paul points out, there's a proposal
for 1.3 that would take care of case 3. Does that mean we stop worrying
about case 2? The proposal for 1.3 doesn't address case 2.
I'll back off the SHOULD if that makes
people uncomfortable - but let's at least put a MAY in. Some kind of hint
that the norm is changing the id of the thing being pulled in, rather than
the local id it conflicts with (assuming I can convince Rob that that's
preferable).
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical
Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
Rob Frankland <>
08/18/2009 06:33 PM
To
"Grosso, Paul" <>
cc
dita <>
Subject
Re: [dita] Issue: Map element IDs and
references to them
Paul got my point exactly. This is really difficult, you
cannot assure that an ID is unique and any fix will almost assuredly make
a bad reference now or in the future. The crux of the matter is that currently
DITA encourages reuse of this type without any way to check validity before
processing - correct?
Rob
Grosso, Paul wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert D Anderson [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, 2009 August 18 17:00
To: Grosso, Paul
Cc: dita
Subject: RE: [dita] Issue: Map element IDs and references to them
Possibly - but to get the inside-section link to work, additional work
would still be required. Unless your topic IDs are all identical --
you'll
have this section:
<section id="thing">
<title>This is a silly section</title>
<note id="test">note that IDs can
be a problem</note>
<p>Look at that note: <xref href=""#other/test"/>
</section>
If that is pulled unchanged into another topic with no modification,
you
will end up with a reference to "#other/test"
... meaning you will
most
likely have a broken link, because the new topic doesn't
have
id="other".
Right, but that's a problem we already know we need to fix
(and we know how to fix it); see DITA 1.3 proposal 13001 at
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/DITA_1.3_Proposals
If the referencing topic, as in the sample below,
has id="something",
and
the target topic has id="other", then for
the link to remain valid as
a
link, you'll have to do one of these:
1) Change the value to #other/test -- but if "test" is now duplicated,
you
have the problem we've been trying to resolve.
2) Change the value to point to the original target -
othertopic.dita#other/test - but this takes you out of the file, which
I'd
guess is never the desired or expected result
3) Change the note to "test-gen1" and change the reference to
"#something/test-gen1" - this is what my code does now, because
(to
me) it
seemed closest to the author's and reader's intent.
That is, within
that
block, the link stays valid and it stays local to
that block.
Once we've implemented proposal 13001, you won't have to do anything
if the referencing topic doesn't have id="test" anywhere--and
having
to do nothing to make this work is as it should be.
If the referencing topic does have id="test", that's the problem
we're discussing where Rob suggests having some kind of "fixup"
of the ids in the referencing document instead of in the referenced
document. Not that that's necessarily the best solution either.
Which is why it isn't clear we should be defining a particular solution
for DITA 1.2. Whether Michael's "shoulds" are optional
enough
to be acceptable is open for question. RFC 2119 says SHOULD means
"that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to
ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood
and carefully weighed before choosing a different course." I'm
not
sure we, ourselves, understand the full implications yet.
My view on that is - if one of my other topics links
to "test" within
topic
"something", then I have created that link
because I want to go to the
element I've defined in there with id="test". Likewise, if somebody
else
has linked to "test" within my topic, then
they're linking to the
element
that actually exists there with id="test".
I also want that link to be
reliable, regardless of what other IDs people add within section I'm
reusing.
If we go the other way, we also run in to the equivalent problem over
in
topic "other". What happens when we have
this, and the conref pulls in
a
phrase with id="test":
<section id="thing">
<title>This is a silly section</title>
<note id="test">note that IDs can
be a problem</note>
<p>Look at that note: <xref href=""#other/test"/>
<p conref="a.dita#nother/thing"/>
</section>
If we have to modify the original, then the local xref is broken
because it
now goes to a phrase instead of the note.
Right, id fixup--regardless of where you do it--always implies
fixing up both ids and idrefs. This is not an easy issue--which
is why I don't think we should be defining specific processing
for DITA 1.2. This will take a lot more thought; we should tackle
this much more deliberately in DITA 1.3.
paul
Thoughts?
Robert D Anderson
IBM Authoring Tools Development
Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
"Grosso, Paul"
<>
To
08/18/2009
05:34 "dita"
<>
PM
cc
Subject
RE: [dita] Issue: Map element
IDs
and references to them
But Rob's point (I believe) is what if the silly section had
an xref to the note with the id="test"? After conreffing
it
into your topic, that xref will now link to something completely
different than the author of the silly section intended.
paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert D Anderson [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, 2009 August 18 16:30
To: Rob Frankland
Cc: dita
Subject: Re: [dita] Issue: Map element IDs and references to them
Hi Rob,
More specifically, the issue is this one - say I have this topic:
<topic id="something">
<title>Sample topic</title>
<body>
<p id="test">This is a sample</p>
<section conref="othertopic.dita#other/thing"/>
</body>
</topic>
Now - what happens when the referenced section brings in an element
that
has id="test"? If the owner of that other
topic randomly adds
id="test" to
a note within that section, I should not have to change
the ID on my
paragraph in order to make my conref valid - I should be able to
reuse
without fear of breaking my own topic.
So, the second bullet in Michael's note is specifically talking
about
how
the processors work when that id="test"
value gets pulled into the
section
in this topic. The suggestion is that, if "test"
already exists in
this
topic, the ID somehow be mangled so that the original
can still
work.
So,
the result after conref would be something like:
<topic id="something">
<title>Sample topic</title>
<body>
<p id="test">This is a sample</p>
<section>
<title>This is a silly section</title>
<note id="test-gen1">note that IDs
can be a problem</note>
</section>
</body>
</topic>
Anybody already linking or conref'ing to the id "test" within
this
topic
will still be safe, and still get the item they expected.
Does that make sense?
Robert D Anderson
IBM Authoring Tools Development
Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
Rob Frankland
<robf@sockmonkeyc
onsult.com>
To
Michael Priestley
08/18/2009 05:19
<>
PM
cc
dita
<>
Subject
Re: [dita] Issue: Map element
IDs
and references to them
In the second bullet shouldn't it be the local ID that gets changed.
If the
ID of the one being brought is changed, will cause
problems in the
original
use of the ID. Local author has the much safe ability
to change
value
of
the ID.
Rob
--
Rob Frankland
Sock Monkey Consulting, LLC
12408 Kallgren RD NE
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Landline: 206-780-8850
Cell: 206-963-5541
Michael Priestley wrote:
OK, Robert talked some sense into me off-line.
I now get Eliot's point during the call today that
a link into
the
substructures of a conref'd section
(for example) is not
reliable, if
only because it requires that
link resolution be done as a
second
pass, after conref resolution,
where many processes may be
resolving
both conrefs and links at the
same time as part of a
resolve-references pass.
I also get Jeff's point about the closest target being
preferable to
the first target: for example,
if I have an xref to a list
item,
both
in the same document, then I'd
want it to continue working
even
after
I conref in something between
them that introduces a duplicate
id.
So in this case, same document=closer.
That said, I still want our behaviors to be predictable,
ie
the
same
across processors. But I don't
want to make a
backwards-incompatible
change either, if I can avoid
it.
So how about:
- map documents, and individual topics, SHOULD NOT
contain
duplicate
ids on their elements (note should
not, rather than must not)
- conrefs that bring in an element with an id that
already
exists in
the conreffing context SHOULD
change the id of the element
being
brought in, to avoid creating
a collision (again note should
not
rather than must not)
That should give a rule similar to what Jeff described
in the
call
today, and makes it recommended
but not required.
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
Eliot Kimber
<>
To
07/06/2009 09:27 AM
dita
<>
cc
Subject
[dita] Issue: Map
element
IDs and references to
them
There appears to be serious inconsistency between
what at
least
I
understand
our decisions about addressing elements within maps
to be and
what
the arch
spec says. In addition, the arch spec as currently
drafted is
inconsistent
on this matter.
In particular, we have established that the fragment
identifier
for
elements
within maps is simply the @id attribute value, e.g.
"#sometopicref".
However, the draft arch spec
says this under "Map IDs and
element IDs
within
a map":
"The id attributes for other elements in map
are not of type
ID
and
are not
required to be unique."
If this statement is true then a fragment identifier
consisting
of
just the
element ID is not sufficient to enable reliable addressing
of
elements
within maps.
So something has to give. I see the following possible
solutions:
A. Define a rule for resolving
ambiguous references, e.g.
"first
occurrence
in document order". This probably reflects current
behavior of
most
implementations.
B. Require element IDs to be unique within map documents.
Note
that
because
of shared elements between topics and maps, it's not
possible
to
declare the
ID attribute for most elements to be of type ID, so
this
requirement
has to
be validated by processors.
C. Make topicref IDs XML IDs and scope all other element
IDs
to
the
nearest
ancestor with a specified @id attribute (or the map
element,
whichever is
nearer). Allow two-part fragment identifiers. Single-part
fragment
identifiers address the first
occurrence in document order.
Option (A) is the simplest to implement but the least
complete.
Option C is
the most complete but changes current processing and
address
resolution
behavior.
As for use cases, references to topicrefs is the primary
use
case for
pointing to elements within maps,
but certainly the current
spec
doesn't
disallow other references and there could be reasons
to, e.g.,
data-about,
conref from "resource" maps, etc.
Cheers,
Eliot
----
Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really
Strategies,
Inc.
email:
<mailto:>
office: 610.631.6770 | cell: 512.554.9368
2570 Boulevard of the Generals | Suite 213 | Audubon,
PA 19403
www.reallysi.com
<http://www.reallysi.com>
|
http://blog.reallysi.com
<http://blog.reallysi.com>
| www.rsuitecms.com
<http://www.rsuitecms.com>
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Landline: 206-780-8850
Cell: 206-963-5541
