Re: DOCBOOK: Re: Linking in DocBook V5.0

[Bob Stayton <bobs at caldera dot com>]

> From: Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>
> 
> / Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu> was heard to say:
> | I'm slowly being convinced that XLinks don't make sense for internal
> | links; e.g. linkend. I can still see using them in place of the
> | various kinds of external links though.
> 
> I'd agree entirely, except that I think the notion of what constitutes
> an internal link is going to start to get fuzzy soon. XInclude, for example,
> provides functionality very similar to external entities, but whereas all
> entities are resolved before DTD validation, XInclude elements won't be.
> 
> So as soon as you <xi:include> the chapters of your book instead of
> &chap;ing them, you have to use "external links" to cross chapter
> boundaries. Unfortunate, perhaps, but there you have it.

>From another point of view, this is an advantage instead
of a disadvantage.  XInclude finally permits true
modular content management in XML.

System entities have never supported true modular content.
Each system entity is not a complete XML file because
DOCTYPE declarations are not permitted in them.  That means
you can't use standard XML editing tools, without resorting
to PI's embedded in your files or special editor tricks.

By using XInclude, each chapter file can be a valid XML
document with DOCTYPE declaration.  You can edit and
process it with any XML tool.  Your master book file uses
something like <xi:include href="chap1.xml#rootelementid">
to pull in the content without the DOCTYPE declaration.

It's true that your cross references between chapters will
have to be handled as external links.  But it isn't hard
to write a link validator that is run as a separate step
from XML validation.  In fact, I've done so.
Once you have link validation working, being able to
work in truly modular files is a big win for anyone
doing large documents (sets, books, references, etc).

I'm posting to docbook-apps a message about a new way to
use olink to process external links with DocBook 4.1.2
without resorting to XLink.  It includes a short example
of doing modular doc this way.

bobs
Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
Caldera International, Inc.                 fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@caldera.com

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