Hi all,

The ATOP group has been grappling with the issue of ODD chaining, and in
particular, how to determine, starting from a customization ODD to
process and following its chain of precursors, how to know when you
reach a base ODD and don't have to go any further.

This is easy if the ultimate base ODD is p5subset, and that is indeed
the default. However, it's perfectly possible that you don't want
anything at all from P5, you just want to customize a base ODD that
you've already created. One obvious sign of a base ODD is that there is
no <schemaSpec> element -- which is the case for p5subset -- but we know
that many base ODDs in the wild DO have a `<schemaSpec>` element, and it
also seems intuitive that if you're creating a schema specification, you
should use a `<schemaSpec>` element.

So we've arrived at a definition of a base ODD, which we believe is
testable; it goes like this (adapted from our meeting notes):

EITHER the ODD has no `<schemaSpec>` element, OR it has a <schemaSpec>
with no `@source` (meaning that the source would default to p5subset),
BUT there are no `<*Ref>` children of that `<schemaSpec>` invoking
content from p5subset so there is no need to retrieve it.

This is based on the assumption that if you use any `<*Ref>` element at
the base level (i.e. as a direct child of `<schemaSpec>`), that
constitutes a call to retrieve something from p5subset; but any such
`<*Ref>` at a lower level must be referring to what is already in the
schema (either because it's locally defined, or because it was brought
in by a top-level `<moduleRef>`, `<elementRef>`, etc.).

So my question is: does all this make sense to you all? If so, and we
proceed on this basis, then P5 could probably use some more explanation
of what a base ODD is, and how it fits into the chaining process.

I should also say that current approaches to ODD chaining with the
current Stylesheets involve pre-compiling any ODD which is earlier in
the chain, so that it constitutes a .processedodd file (see
<https://teic.github.io/PDF/howtoChain.pdf> section 4), but we would
like ATOP to be able to do all that automatically, so that all you do is
specify the source for your customization, and the processor can
construct the entire chain and compile everything in sequence.

Cheers,
Martin
--
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Martin Holmes
UVic Humanities Computing and Media Centre

I acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional
territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ
peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.

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