[tei-council] Examples for certainty|precision @match

[Martin Holmes]

> I would vote for b.

+1 from me.

Cheers,
Martin

On 12-11-29 04:50 AM, James Cummings wrote:
> On 29/11/12 11:11, Gabriel Bodard wrote:
>> That rings a bell. :-) So in the absence of @xml:base, the starting
>> point for any xpointer in @target is root. (Which was an aside anyway.)
>>
>> There are two questions re the starting point for xpath in @match:
>>
>> 1. What is the starting point assumed to be for any @match (in the
>> absence of @target)? The guidelines say current element, but some
>> examples in CE seem to assume the element's parent;
>
> The guidelines explicitly say the opposite of this surely?  They
> say things like:
>
> "When no target is specified, by default the proposed certainty
> applies to its parent element, in this case the placeName
> element. The match attribute discussed below may be used to
> further vary this behaviour."
>
> and
>
> "As previously noted, if no value is supplied for target, the
> context within which the value of match should be evaluated is
> the parent element of the certainty element itself."
>
> It is only on the reference page for att.scoping that it says
> that @match:
>
> "supplies an arbitrary XPath expression identifying a set of
> nodes, selected within the context identified by the target
> attribute if this is supplied, or within the context of the
> element bearing this attribute if it is not."
>
> I would contend that this should just be changed to "or within
> the context of the parent of the element bearing this attribute
> if it is not." (or something even clearer!)
>
>> 2. What is the assumed context of any certainty|precision element in the
>> absence of @match (and @target)? The guidelines say current element's
>> parent, which I feel is slightly unintuitive alongside the official
>> answer to question 1.
>
> I think to say one of these is 'official' and the other isn't is
> a bit misleading. ;-)
>
>> There are then 4 possible solutions to this:
>
> I would vote for b.
>
> -James
>
>
>>     a. context is always current element, so most @match attributes will
>> begin "../", but other possibilities such as match="preceding::lb[1]"
>> are possible. This may be the most strictly rational solution, although
>> not the most popular, as far as conversation so far indicates. (Plus,
>> and more importantly, I bet no one actually uses xsl:evaluate to
>> interpret the content of @match as XPath...)
>>
>>     b. context is always parent of current element, so @match can often be
>> omitted, and most examples in the Guidelines showing values such as
>> match="@reason" are correct. This is also nice and consistent, if
>> slightly more limiting (but in a good way: a certainty element can no
>> longer refer to itself), and also convenient for anyone who doesn't want
>> to have to evaluate document-source XPath on the fly, but just embed
>> certainty|precision inside the qualified element and treat it as an
>> "enhanced attribute".
>>
>>     c. context is current if there is content in @match (and no @target),
>> parent if there is not: status quo; examples in guidelines need fixing.
>> (Slightly unintuitive?)
>>
>> [d. context is parent if there is content in @match (and no @target),
>> current if not: clearly nonsense.]
>>
>> There are arguments for and against all of a, b and c. In my opinion b
>> is the strongest, for the reasons articulated above (and argued by James
>> yesterday), but there may be some value to c, the status quo.
>>
>> Does this express the options clearly, do you think?
>
>
>

-- 
Martin Holmes
mholmes at uvic.ca
UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre