[rfc-i] [IAB] draft-iab-xml2rfc-03, "2.19 <displayreference> "

[jhildebr at cisco.com (Joe Hildebrand (jhildebr))]

OK, here's an approach that would simplify things a little bit for the output formatters:

- add a reference/@targetdisplay attribute
- after the preptool has included all references
- have the preptool fill in reference/@display with either displayreference/@to or reference/@target
- preptool removes <displayreference>
- preptool sorts references by reference/@display if rfc/@sortRefs is true

I understand that this doesn't change much in terms of the amount of code to be written.  However, I think it makes it more likely that future output formatters will not ignore <displayreference>.

-- 
Joe Hildebrand







On 3/2/16, 9:13 AM, "Julian Reschke" <julian.reschke at gmx.de> wrote:

>On 2016-03-02 17:05, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2 Mar 2016, at 7:42, Joe Hildebrand (jhildebr) wrote:
>>
>>> It doesn't sound like you're strongly in favor of keeping this
>>> functionality.  Are there others who think it's more important than this?
>>
>> I think the functionality of <displayreference> is extremely important
>> for RFC readability. From the v3 doc:
>>     This element gives a mapping between the anchor of a reference and a
>>     name that will be displayed instead.  This allows authors to display
>>     more mnemonic anchor names for automatically-included references.
>>     The mapping in this element only applies to <xref> elements whose
>>     format is "default".
>>
>> When I was editing the IKEv2 specs, which had a zillion references to
>> older RFCs, using descriptive names in the references helped
>> implementers understand what they were reading. I have been told by
>> other RFC authors that it has been useful to them as well.
>
>That part can be achieved by changing the anchor attribute in the 
><reference> element (once it's pasted into the XML source, which for 
>some reason some people do not like).
>
>> I understand that some names might not be useable as "to" references
>> because the allowed format for those references is limited; I don't
>
>Hmm, which? Example? We have a "political" restriction to US-ASCII (not 
>yet in the spec perhaps), but other than that?
>
>> think that's a good enough reason to get rid of the functionality. If
>> some people can't make he "to" references exactly what they want, that's
>> a limitation we should live with.
>
>> I'm fine with the idea that the prep tool will remove <displayreference>
>> from the prepped XML if we can do so.
>
>How is it supposed to do that when to="3GBLA"?
>
>Best regards, Julian
>
>