[tei-council] allowText

[Martin Holmes]

On 14-06-09 04:43 AM, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>
> On 9 Jun 2014, at 12:21, Lou Burnard <lou.burnard at retired.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> Sorry to bang on about this, but we need to resolve the issue.
>>
>> I want to express in pure ODD the content model (text | a | b)*
>>
>> I can imagine 3 ways this might be done in pure ODD
>>
>> (a) <content allowText="true">
>>         <elementRef key="a"/>
>>          <elementRef key="b"/>
>>      </content>
>>
>> (b) <content  allowText="true">
>>         <alternate>
>>           <elementRef key="a"/>
>>           <elementRef key="b"/>
>>         </alternate>
>> </content>
>>
>> (c) <content >
>>         <alternate allowText="true">
>>           <elementRef key="a"/>
>>           <elementRef key="b"/>
>>         </alternate>
>> </content>
>
> i would go with the most explicit (c) every time, as most extensible/sustainable.
> i don’t read a) as meaning "(text | a | b)*”

What does it seem to you to mean? Of should it just be wrong to have 
elementRefs directly in a <content>?

>> Of these only the first currently generates (text | a | b)*  The second
>> generates
>> (text | (text | bit | bob))* which is gibberish; the third generates
>> just (a | b)
>>
> behaviour of c) is a bug. a) is tricky - the current output is not ideal,
> but is an LCD

I've been confused about the meaning of <alternate>, which seemed to me 
to mean "a or b but not both". The remark on the example in the Glines 
suggests this too:

[quote]
<content>
  <alternate>
   <elementRef key="name"/>
   <elementRef key="persName"/>
  </alternate>
</content>
Show all

This example content model permits either a name or a persName.
[/quote]

I was looking for a grab-bag element -- <anyOf>, or something like that. 
<sequence> also confused me a bit; it seems to mean what it says until 
you notice the @preserveOrder, which if false completely undermines its 
semantics.

>> Personally, I stand by my view that (a) is the right way to express the
>> required content model. It is not ambiguous unless you think that
>> multiple ungrouped elementRefs implies a sequence. But if that were
>> true, why did we invent the sequence container?
> to group them together in alternates?
>
>> p.s. I haven't included occurrence indicators above; if you do they are
>> always ignored anyway. In the fullness of time they should generate an
>> additional schematron constraint perhaps.
>
> some of them work…

They're important; I find myself wanting to use them everywhere.

Cheers,
Martin

> --
> Sebastian Rahtz
> Director (Research) of Academic IT
> University of Oxford IT Services
> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>
> Não sou nada.
> Nunca serei nada.
> Não posso querer ser nada.
> À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
>