Conditional processing

Conditional processing is the filtering or flagging of information based on processing-time criteria. Conditional processing is based on attributes specified in the DITA source.

Draft comment: Kristen J Eberlein 13 March 2022

The following content was in the container topic for the DITAVAL elements. I think it should be edited, rephrased as a normative statement, and covered here:

Conditional processing code should provide a report of any attribute values encountered in content that do not have an action associated with them.

Draft comment: rodaande 21 March 2022
I'm less convinced it needs to be a normative statement. I think it can be a helpful addition to a processor, but it can also be a big annoyance. If anything about it is normative, I think it needs to be MAY, allowing processors to choose whether such notification is appropriate for their use cases.
Draft comment: Kristen J Eberlein 21 March 2022

Maybe we should have a topic here in the architectural section about errors? We could move some of the normative statements about errors from the element-reference topics to here.

Draft comment: robander
TO RESOLVE 11 May 2026: How about if we just add a statement to the "Expectaions for conditional processing" topic that says a processor might do this (non-normative), so that it's there as something we can reference but doesn't add any rules for processors. I really don't think this specific issue should be a normative rule, whether it is SHOULD or MAY.