[tei-council] Comments on Chapter 18, Tables, Formulae, and Graphics.

[Lou's Laptop]

David J Birnbaum wrote:
>
>>>
>> The content model for cell would become ambiguous if we allowed 
>> <table> within it explicitly, since <table> is a member of 
>> model.inter, which is permitted within macro.paraContent.
>
> Does this mean that <table> is already allowed directly inside <cell> 
> because <table> is a member of model.inter, which is part of 
> macro.paraContent, which is allowed directly inside <cell>? 

Yes!

> If so, does this mean that a <row> may contain a mixture of <cell> and 
> <table> elements as its immediate children, and the <cell> elements 
> may themselves contain <table> elements? 

Yes!

> If so, since I can't think of how those two ways of representing an 
> embedded subtable would reflect different semantics, should we remove 
> <table> as a possible immediate subelement of <row>, so that users who 
> want a subtable will have to embed it inside a <cell>?
This was my thought too.


> Or am I still confused?
>
Far from it, on present evidence.
>> That said, I think the content model for these elements is quite 
>> strange: in particular the way model.global is permitted between 
>> cells and rows. Consider the following:
>>
>> <row><note/><cell><note/>stuff</cell><note/><cell/><note/></row>
>>
>> To which element is each of the four notes above attached?
>
> A very good question, indeed! I suppose the notes are attached to 
> their parents, so #1 refers to the <row>, #2 to the cell, #3 also to 
> the row, and #4 also to the row. Why, then (I hear you cry), are the 
> three notes attached to the <row> located in different places, and how 
> would it affect the semantics of the document if they were moved 
> elsewhere within the <row> element?
>
Quite so. And what would we lose by saying "this is silly" and 
disallowing model.global anywhere except inside <cell> (via paraContent, 
vide supra)?

We'd lose the ability to put e.g. <lb/>s between cells, rather than 
inside them. I don't think that would make me lose much sleep, but maybe 
I;m missing something here?