[tei-council] @TEIform

[Sebastian Rahtz]

James Cummings wrote:

>
> My assumption has always been that in document instances which
> conformed to an extended DTD where TEI elements had been renamed, a
> processed version of the document might exist out of context from its
> DTD.  (Since it is the processing of the document in conjunction with
> the DTD which provides the attribute.)  So once a document instance is
> moved somewhere else from it's DTD, that I have a <chapter> element
> which is really just a type of <div> becomes problematised because I
> have not documented that it is just a <div type="chapter">.  However,
> if I have a @TEIform, then the processed/expanded document, even in
> absence of its DTD will have @TEIform="div", thus providing some
> perhaps crucial information to someone happening upon the document
> years later.

This is all true _only_ if you have taken your source document with its
DTD, and run it through some sort
of normalization process.  The TEIform attribute of your <chapter> is
provided only by the DTD, not
in the instance (does anyone use TEIform manually?). I suggest that the
using the "normalized" form of
document, with all implied attributes inserted, is not
remotely common working practice.
If you keep the DTD around, then things are OK.

In P5 world, you have to track two support files, the original ODD file,
and the generated schema file; the downside is
that you may use the schema file every day, but the ODD only once in a
blue moon, so you may get confused.

>
> So explain to me again how the reference back to the ODD source works?
>  I'm of course in favour of that as a mechanism since it also covers
> attribute names.

I find <chapter>. I read the ODD source to see if if
"elementSpec/altltIdent[.='chapter']" exists.
If so, I grab ../@ident, and rename my <chapter> to whatever that is.

easy, no?

of course, a variant ODD processor might generate you a custom XSL
script or the like to do the job
straight off.

-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      
Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

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