[tei-council] Dates and calendars

[Lou Burnard]

On 14/08/12 19:13, Gabriel Bodard wrote:
> On 2012-08-14 16:31, Martin Holmes wrote:
>>> What is this schematron supposed to be constraining? No @calendar if
>>> <date> (etc) is empty?
>> I think so. That should be true, shouldn't it?
>
> I'm not clear what an empty <date> means, myself, so I'm not sure I can
> imagine what the danger of allowing @calendar on it is. Is the idea that
> @calendar should only be used when the date is used in transcription of
> a primary text?


I think (with some trepidation, having already got  several things wrong 
on this thread) that an empty <date> is to a <date> with content like a 
<ptr> is to a <ref>. You might want to have your software generate the 
content for the date, you might not actually want any content at all. 
But you do want to reference a date.

My first thought was that @calendar by definition tells you how to 
interpret the content of the <date>. Ergo if there is no content, but 
there is a @when (or, for that matter, a @when-custom), specifying 
@calendar can only lead to confusion. The @calendar value does NOT apply 
to either @when or @when-custom (or you would not be able to supply both)


So the rule should be something like "if a <date> is empty, then either 
@when or @when-custom (or both) should be supplied AND  @calendar must 
NOT be supplied"


> >>> No *-custom without @datingPoint|@datingMethod?
>> I had thought so, but then I realized I wouldn't want to enforce either
>> of those things. If @calendar points to a <calendar> with a detailed
>> description of the dating system, then there's no point in @datingMethod
>> (which also "supplies a pointer to a <calendarDesc> element or other
>> means of interpreting the values of the custom dating attributes".
>> (Incidentally, should that be <calendarDesc> or just <calendar>?)

See above. I think this is based on the mistaken assumption that 
@calendar refers to the value of the attributes on <date> rather than to 
its content.


This would all be much easier if there were some clear examples of how 
to use these various things in combination in the Guidelines...

>> Similarly, @datingPoint is obviously optional.

Yes. Though I do wonder why it is not treated as a kind of calendar.

>>
>> However, I think it's true to say, isn't it, that if you have any of
>> @*-custom, you should have one of @calendar, @datingMethod or @datingPoint?
>
> Yes, that is almost certainly true.

Almost, but I think not quite. @calendar doesn't help you interpret your 
@*.customs much.

So is the rule, report @*-custom
> without @calendar|@datingPoint|@datingMethod? That seems responsible,
> although I'm one of those people who often uses sloppy behaviour in
> practice that would fall foul of this.
>
> I worry a bit about the two above rules being a bit contradictory,
> though. We don't complain about @*-custom on an empty element; but we do
> complain about @*-custom without @calendar|@dP|@dM, so I add @calendar
> to make it valid, and it then complains about @calendar on the empty
> element. (Maybe @calendar has no bearing on @*-custom at all, though?)
>

exactly!