[docbook] Re: [DBX5] Is this a DocBook document?

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

/ Tobias Reif <tobiasreif@pinkjuice.com> was heard to say:
| Processing tools such as validators need to be able to find out the
| main language of a document, so that they can know which schema(s)
| apply.

Another view is that schemas are "out of band" for validators. A
document can be validated (even successfully!:-) under many different
schemas.

| The namespace plus a version attribute seems to be a possible solution.

Versioning is hard. I humbly point to some ongoing work in the TAG
on this subject: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/versioning.html

| So I propose that the next DocBook XML be in a namespace, and that
| each DBX document should have a required version attribute on it's
| root element, plus an optional profile attribute.

Putting DocBook in a namespace is a possibility. It's going to be
hugely backwards incompatible, though. It's not a step I'd want to
take lightly.

I have mixed feelings about a version attribute. There are lots of
DocBook documents that are valid under many different versions. If I
write a 4.2 document today and it's still valid under 4.3, what does
version=4.2 mean?

| Ideally this should be standardized on the XML level:
|
| 1.
| xmlns=""
| (exists)

That's putting DocBook in "no namespace". That's not quite the same as
xmlns="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/"; or something like that.

| 2.
| xml:version=""
| (doesn't exist yet)
| especiall needed if the language is not version 1.0 or if the
| namespace name doesn't contain version info (eg is the same for all
| versions, which I prefer).

I don't think xml:version is very likely.

| 3.
| optional xml:profile=""
| (doesn't exist yet)
| Useful if a subset is used.

How does profile differ from version and namespace? What sorts of
values does it hold?

| Catalog entries could look like this:
| (SVG is used as example since it is namespaced, uses a version
| attribute, and also shows the requirement for specification of the
| profile attribute)
|
| <language
|    name="SVG"
|    ns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
|    version="1.1">
|    <schemas>
|      <schema
|        official="yes"
|        schema-lang="DTD"
|        location="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd"/>
|      <schema
|        official="no"
|        schema-lang="RNG"
|        location="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/rng/svg11.rng"/>
|    </schemas>
| </language>

This looks more like a RDDL document than a catalog.

Catalogs suffer from the limitation that the resolver doesn't really
know why the resource is being retrieved, so simple URI comparison is
about all it can do.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

- -- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | What is familiar is what we are
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | used to; and what we are used to
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | is most difficult to 'Know'--that
                                   | is, to see as a problem; that is,
                                   | to see as strange, as distant, as
                                   | 'outside us'.--Nietzsche
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/>

iD8DBQE/eWThOyltUcwYWjsRAofjAJ40WTuORIfLRrZSGuMctfNuE6yfVwCgh+Uj
maCeINk3N6TbAfyFgTFp8ww=
=QSHO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

To unsubscribe from this list, send a post to docbook-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org.