[tei-council] Wot is wrong with my ODD?

[Lou Burnard]

On 08/06/14 14:36, Martin Holmes wrote:
> I'm quite confused now. What I like about PureODD is that (I thought) 
> it was relatively transparent and comprehensible. 

It is. Just not quite the way you expected. Trust me.

> If this: <elementSpec ident="seg" mode="change"> <content 
> allowText="true"> <elementRef key="orgName" maxOccurs="unbounded" 
> minOccurs="0"/> <elementRef key="persName" maxOccurs="unbounded" 
> minOccurs="0"/> <elementRef key="choice" maxOccurs="unbounded" 
> minOccurs="0"/> <elementRef key="seg" maxOccurs="unbounded" 
> minOccurs="0"/> <elementRef key="trait" maxOccurs="unbounded" 
> minOccurs="0"/> </content> </elementSpec> is different from this: 
> <elementSpec ident="seg" mode="change"> <content allowText="true"> 
> <elementRef key="orgName"/> <elementRef key="persName" /> <elementRef 
> key="choice" /> <elementRef key="seg" /> <elementRef key="trait"/> 
> </content> </elementSpec> and (especially) if the latter is somehow 
> impossible, then we need to revisit it and ultimately document it in 
> much more detail. 

The latter is correct, and does what you'd expect. The former is not 
correct and should generate warnings/errors, but our current 
implementation scorns such things.

Let me try to summarise the rules as I see them this afternoon:

1. The content of <content> can be

-- nothing (the element is empty)

-- a single elementRef or macroRef or classRef (the content is a single 
element, a pattern, or a class reference)

-- a sequence or alternation of the foregoing in which case <sequence> 
or <alternate> must be used to group them (and supply occurence 
indicators if required)

2. The content of <content allowText="true"/> (aka <mixedContent>) can be

-- nothing (the element has text content)

-- one or more elementRefs or macroRefs or classRefs (the specified 
content is alternated with text 0:n times )

-- if sequence or alternation are specified, it is an error since we are 
only supporting XML at present, and it would therefore make no sense to 
allow them

-- likewise for occurrence indicators

3. @allowText is not supported on anything other than <content> (its 
presence elsewhere is is a corrigible error in the current spec)