Re: [dita] Rationale for content model of definition list entry

On 5/17/2015 8:33 AM, Kristen James
      Eberlein wrote:

    

    I was asked about the content model for definition
      lists this past week.
      

      

      Why does the content model for <dlentry> allow multiple
      instances of <dt>? I can understand multiple instances of
      <dd> -- a term often has multiple definitions -- but a use
      case for multiple (primary) terms eludes me.
      

      

      FWIW, the content model for <dlhd> only permits zero or one
      <dthead> and zero or one <ddhd>.
      

      

    
    Digging back to the origins: 

    

    This quirk reflecs the premise that the base models throughout DITA
    are intentionally rich to support many possible use cases via
    specialization. In the case of dlentry, I seem to recall that we
    observed precedent cases of multiple terms both in former IBMIDDoc
    and in HTML content that we examined. If you were documenting error
    codes or flags in software, for example, several codes might all
    point to a common cause or response. In hardware, the same would go
    for indicator lights or sounds. The nature of the dd "column" to
    behave like the singular key can be seen also in simpletable where
    any column can be designated as the @keycol. Hence column 1 is not
    always necessarily the "single value lookup" column in the general
    case of who-knows-what-data.

    

    The heading case is different since this involves a label for the
    column, so a single label of "Names" may reflect subsequent column
    data that consists of possible plural child items. Simpletable may
    have multiple strows of stheads, but that is mostly a quirk of the
    open base model for specialization--most users create only one row
    of heads, which acknowledges the same intent as the dlhead
    constraint.

    

    This may have been covered in the FAQ-like topic I contributed about
    DITA quirks. We might consider adding this discussion into that
    topic if it adds anything useful.

    

    
-- 

      
      

        Don R. Day

        Founding Chair, OASIS
          DITA Technical Committee

        LinkedIn: donrday   Twitter:
        @donrday

        About.me: Don R. Day   Skype:
        don.r.day
      

      

        "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

        Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

        --T.S. Eliot 
      

    

  

	

		
			
				
			
		
		
			

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