RE: [xsl] need help explaining one data structure over another

Subject: RE: [xsl] need help explaining one data structure over another
From: "Matthew L. Avizinis" <mla@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 17:37:48 -0400
Thanks for the replies everyone.
By reading them I have concluded that the <primary><secondary>etc. scheme is
more useful.  By examining several indexes I noticed something I hadn't
before -- there are many secondary items which are dependent upon their
primary parents in order to have any meaning and the same for tertiary with
secondary items.  So it would seem that it is indeed not an artificial
construct to name them as such.
For example,
 Airplane
    Instruments
    Lights
    Performance
    Stability
By themselves, the secondary items in the above list could have entirely
different meanings if not children of the primary item Airplane.

Now, the question that relates to this list the way I initially wanted it
to:
Since the primary purpose of the elements is to be able to generate an index
fo document which is then used to generate a pdf, could it be reasonable to
use a
<xsl:template match="primary | secondary | tertiary"> in order to only have
one template to process them?  Really the only difference in the final
output is that secondary is indented from primary and tertiary indented from
secondary.  I hope this doesn't sound too idiotic.
thanks,
matthew l. avizinis

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
> sara.mitchell@xxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 2:18 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [xsl] need help explaining one data structure over another
>
>
> Well it depends on how the index is actually being written.
> DocBook has a fairly long history of being very specific
> about a lot of things (think of sect1-5, or all the
> various *info elements).
>
> If your authors are literally writing up the index inside
> <index><indexentry><primary></></></> and so on, the
> different names make it easier to keep straight where
> you are as you're writing. I'm sure people who like the
> <item> structure will say that simple indentation works
> fine for this, but it is one thing to think about. The
> writers are your users, so unless there's some other impact
> (like performance), making their job easier ought to
> count for something. So maybe you should ask them and go
> with what they like?
>
> I have implemented the DocBook indexing and found it
> good for some things and awkward for others. What
> you end up with are templates that match primary, secondary,
> etc. rather than a couple of templates, one to match item
> and one to recurse through the hierarchy. At least from
> my perspective, this was a very small issue (read a drop
> in the bucket) in getting the index to be generated and
> properly linked.
>
> Sara Mitchell
> [snipped]
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Matthew L. Avizinis [mailto:mla@xxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Monday, August 05, 2002 7:47 AM
> > To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: RE: [xsl] need help explaining one data structure
> > over another
> >
> >
> > I guess I am just trying to figure out why DocBook went to
> > such trouble to
> > have a whole bunch of index terms -- they must have had some
> > reason for
> > using primary, secondary, indexdiv, etc., right?
>
>
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


Current Thread