Cascading of metadata attributes in a DITA map
Certain map-level attributes cascade throughout a map, which facilitates attribute and metadata management. When attributes cascade, they apply to the elements that are children of the element where the attributes were specified. Cascading applies to a containment hierarchy, as opposed to a element-type hierarchy.
The following attributes cascade when set on the <map>
element or
when set within a map:
@audience
,@platform
,@product
,@otherprops
,@rev
@props
and any attribute specialized from@props
@linking
,@toc
,@print
,@search
@format
,@scope
,@type
@xml:lang
,@dir
,@translate
@processing-role
@cascade
@cascade
attribute is set to avoid adding values
to attributes. For attributes that take a single value, the closest value defined on
a containing element takes effect. In a relationship table, row-level metadata is considered
more specific than column-level metadata, as shown in the following containment
hierarchy:<map>
(most general)<topicref>
container (more specific)<topicref>
(most specific)
<reltable>
(more specific)<relcolspec>
(more specific)<relrow>
(more specific)<topicref>
(most specific)
Merging of cascading attributes
The @cascade
attribute can be used to modify the additive nature of
attribute cascading (though it does not turn off cascading altogether). The attribute has
two predefined values: "merge" and "nomerge".
- cascade="merge"
- The metadata attributes cascade; the values of the
metadata attributes are additive. This is the
processing default for the
@cascade
attribute and was the only defined behavior for DITA 1.2 and earlier. - cascade="nomerge"
- The metadata attributes cascade; however, they are not
additive for
<topicref>
elements that specify a different value for a specific metadata attribute. If the cascading value for an attribute is already merged based on multiple ancestor elements, that merged value continues to cascade until a new value is encountered (that is, settingcascade="nomerge"
does not undo merging that took place on ancestors).
Implementers MAY define their own custom, implementation-specific tokens. To avoid name conflicts between implementations or with future additions to the standard, implementation-specific tokens SHOULD consist of a prefix that gives the name or an abbreviation for the implementation followed by a colon followed by the token or method name.
@audience
attribute. The
following rules apply:- The predefined values for the
@cascade
attribute MUST precede any implementation-specific tokens, for example,cascade="merge appToken:audience"
. - Tokens can apply to a set of attributes, specified as part of the
@cascade
value. In that case, the syntax for specifying those values consists of the implementation-specific token, followed by a parenthetical group that uses the same syntax as groups within the@audience
,@platform
,@product
, and@otherprops
attributes. For example, a token that applies to only@platform
and@product
could be specified ascascade="appname:token(platform product)"
.
Examples of the @cascade
attribute in use
Consider the following code examples:
For map A, the values for the attribute are merged, and the effective value of the
@audience
attribute for topic.dita is "a b c". For
map B, the values for the attribute are not additive, and the effective value of the
@audience
attribute for topic.dita is "c".
In the following example, merging is active at the map level but turned off below:
In map C, the reference to one.dita has effective merged values of "a
b" for @platform
and "x y" for @product
.
The reference to two.dita turns off merging, so the explicit
@product
value of "z" is used (it does not merge with ancestor values).
The @platform
attribute is not present, so the already-merged value of "a b"
continues to cascade and is the effective value of @platform
on this
reference.
Order for processing cascading attributes in a map
When determining the value of an attribute, processors MUST evaluate each attribute on each individual element in a specific order; this order is specified in the following list. Applications MUST continue through the list until a value is established or until the end of the list is reached (at which point no value is established for the attribute). In essence, the list provides instructions on how processors can construct a map where all attribute values are set and all cascading is complete.
For example, in the case of <topicref toc="yes">
,
applications MUST stop at item 2 in the list; a value is
specified for @toc
in the document instance, so @toc
values
from containing elements will not cascade to that specific <topicref>
element. The toc="yes"
setting on that <topicref>
element will cascade to contained elements, provided those elements reach item 5 below when evaluating
the @toc
attribute.
- The
@conref
and@keyref
attributes are evaluated. - The explicit values specified in the document instance are
evaluated. For example, a
<topicref>
element with the@toc
attribute set to "no" will use that value. - The default or fixed attribute values are evaluated. For example, the
@toc
attribute on the<reltable>
element has a default value of "no". - The default values that are supplied by a controlled values file are evaluated.
- The attributes cascade.
- The processing-supplied default values are applied.
- After the attributes are resolved within the map, they cascade to referenced maps.
Note: The processing-supplied default values do not cascade to other maps. For example, most processors will supply a default value of
toc="yes"
when no@toc
attribute is specified. However, a processor-supplied default oftoc="yes"
MUST not override a value oftoc="no"
that is set on a referenced map. If thetoc="yes"
value is explicitly specified, is given as a default through a DTD, XSD, RNG, or controlled values file, or cascades from a containing element in the map, it MUST override atoc="no"
setting on the referenced map. See Map-to-map cascading behaviors for more details. - Repeat steps 1 to 4 for each referenced map.
- The attributes cascade within each referenced map.
- The processing-supplied default values are applied within each referenced map.
- Repeat the process for maps referenced within the referenced maps.