Cascading of metadata attributes in a DITA map
Certain 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 specialization hierarchy.
The following attributes cascade when set on the <map> element or when
set within a map:
Cascading is additive for attributes that accept multiple values,
except when cascade="nomerge" is
specified. For attributes that take a single value, the value
that is defined on the closest containing
element takes effect.
In a relationship table, metadata can be applied to entire rows or
columns, as well as individual cells. The metadata cascade operates
differently due to the nature of this tabular structure The cascade
is not driven by a strict containment hierarchy because
<relcolspec> elements do not contain child
elements.
The following list illustrates how metadata cascades in a relationship table:
<reltable><relcolspec><relrow><relcell><topicref>