Re: DOCBOOK: RFE for further modularization of hierarchy; pleasecomment

[Bob Stayton <bobs at caldera dot com>]

Hi Michael,
I read your proposal.  There were two things that
came to mind for me.

1.  The DTD is already pretty highly modularized using
marked sections.  The marked sections allow a custom driver
file to INCLUDE or IGNORE element declarations.  Some of
the individual element marked sections are inside larger
marked sections that wrap a related group of elements.  I'm
wondering if this nesting of marked sections could be
extended to include the DTD modules that you envision?  You
could achieve the same effect of selecting modules in the
driver file without proliferating files.

2.  After saying that the DTD is highly modularized, I
have to say (from experience) that it is not completely
modularized.  That is, selecting certain modules to leave
out can leave you with an invalid DTD.  There are a lot
of interconnections among the elements in the way they
are used in parameter entities and content models.
The reason I wrote the LiveDTD utility was to help me
track those interconnections, and to unwind them when
trying to remove an element.  Certainly choosing among the
highest level containers as you propose is less of a
problem than leaving out individual inline elements that
appear in many content models.  But some attention has to
be given to at least documenting the limits to which
modules can be deselected and still have a working DTD.

bobs
Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
Caldera International, Inc.                 fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@caldera.com

> From: Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>
> 
> I just filed an RFE proposing further modularization of the DocBook
> hieararchical elements (the stuff in the dbhier.mod file).
> 
>   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=477073&group_id=21935&atid=384107
> 
> I hope anyone interested can take some time to comment on it here.
> 
> Briefly, the idea is to take content models from the dbhier.mod file
> and put them into separate files/modules, like in this diagram:
> 
>   https://sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php?group_id=21935&atid=384107&file_id=12733&aid=477073
> 
> and here, as text:
>   
>   * sections module:        Section, Sect1-Sect5, Simplesect
>   * reference page module:  Refentry and its child hierarchy
>   * article module:         Article (and Articleinfo)
>   * navigational          
>     components module:      ToC, LoT, Index
>   * supplemental          
>     components module:      Appendix, Glossary, Bibliography
>   * book and set module:    Book, Set, Part, Partintro, Reference,
>                             Preface, Chapter, Dedication, Colophon
> 
> Along with making the separate modules, we'd also need to add
> parameter entity switches for turning on or turning off each of them.
> 
> The rationale is that it'll make it easier for DTD implementors/
> customizers to mix and match or ignore whatever building blocks from
> the standard hierarchy they choose -- so they can use only the
> hierarchical bits they need and ignore the rest. It's just another
> useful hook to add to all the existing hooks that DocBook has for
> facilitating customizations.
> 
> Regarding any effects on document authoring and validation: I think it
> would be a transparent change. It should be 100 percent backward-
> compatible -- anything that validates against the 4.1.2 DTD should
> validate against this modification.
> 
> If you want to try it out, you can grab a modified version of the
> 4.1.2 XML distribution, with the proposed modules added.
> 
>   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/download.php?group_id=21935&atid=384107&file_id=12731&aid=477073
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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