[rfc-i] [IAB] draft-iab-xml2rfc-03, "1.3.3 Elements and Attributes Deprecated from v2"

[julian.reschke at gmx.de (Julian Reschke)]

On 2016-03-15 23:51, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>>> "Deprecate the "none" values for the "format" attribute in <xref>
>>> because it makes no sense semantically."
>>>
>>> That's incorrect -- an xref with format=none still represents an
>>> internal link, even though no extra text is generated. In formats that
>>> support linking (so anything except plain text) it is supposed to be
>>> mapped to a simple link. For instance:
>>>
>>>   <xref format="none" target="x">FOOBAR</xref>
>>
>> I think the intent is that anytime there is text inside the xref, it
>> acts like format="none", and the format attribute would be ignored.
>
> I think what Julian may be objecting to is that the case of
> format="default" with content is incorrectly defined. It currently says:
>
>        The "derivedContent" attribute will contain a text fragment that
>        describes the referenced part completely, such as "XML" for a
>        target that is a <reference>, or "Section 2" or "Table 4" for a
>        target to a non-reference.
>
> It should instead say "If there is no content, the "derivedContent"
> attribute will..." I will fix that for the next draft.

Well, until I see what "..." is I can't comment. I believe that 
pretending that nothing is auto-generated when there is text content is 
incorrect, and a breaking change compared to what the existing tools 
have been doing for plain text output for ages.

Best regards, Julian