[tei-council] datatype of @n in att.global

[James Cummings]

Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
> i plead insanity, m'lud

Your motion is accepted, so the rest of your message will be treated as the
ravings of a deranged lunatic.

> oh yeah? in what sense is "6 (3)" different from "6.3" as valid
> use of @n to record a section number?

It has a space, which makes it two numbers or labels, and the definition
says it should have one.  Space is a magical thing which although it is a
character just like others has this weird semantics of creating two
separate things in people's minds when you put it in the middle of a string
of alphanumeric characters.

> why not? again, how is it different from 6.2?

Cuz it has spaces in.  If you want to use filepaths, use something that
gives you and attribute with xsd:anyURI perhaps.  Storing a filepath seems
like storing textual information in addition to simply a number for the
element to me.

> that just means the <desc> is wrong. @n is used, surely, to record
> (eg) the number-like prefix on heading?  so "42" is fine, we all agree;
> and I am sure you would also accept "4.2" _because it looks like a
> number_. It ain't. its 4 and 2 separated by a "."; in which case why
> not separated by a space?

Because Space is magical dude.

-James
Ok, not very good arguments, I know.  Does anyone feel strongly that @n
should remain data.word?

-- 
Dr James Cummings, Oxford Text Archive, University of Oxford
James dot Cummings at oucs dot ox dot ac dot uk