Element generalization

Elements are generalized by examining the @class attribute. When a generalization process detects that an element belongs to one of the modules that is being generalized, the element is renamed to a more general form.

For example, the <step> element has a @class attribute value of "- topic/li task/step ". If the task module is generalized, the <step> element is renamed to its more general form from the topic module: <li>.

For specific concerns when generalizing structural types with dependencies on non-ancestor modules, see Generalization with cross-specialization dependencies.

While the tag name of a given element is normally the same as the type name of the last token in the @class value, this is not required. For example, if a generalization process has already run on the element, the @class attribute could contain tokens from two or more modules based on the original specialization. In that case, the element name could already match the first token or an intermediate token in the @class attribute. A second generalization process could end up renaming the element again or could leave it alone, depending on the target module or document type.