[xep-support] Inter-document references

[Jim Melton]

Gentlepeople,

I am feeling unusually stupid today, so I'm turning to you for some advice, 
guidance, or outright solutions ;^)  Please forgive the length of this 
note, but I want to be sure that I communicate my issue.

I am the editor for a multi-part ISO standard (SQL).  This requires that I 
periodically (roughly 3 times a year) publish working drafts of the 
complete suite of 9 parts ("part" = "separate document", each having its 
own cover page, numbering, index, etc.).  Of course, once work has 
completed on a new generation of the standard, I publish the actual, final 
standards themselves.  At less-frequent intervals, I must publish a single 
part (e.g., a brand new part that did not exist at the time of the previous 
publication of the existing parts, or even an Amendment to one or more 
existing parts).

In the published documents (working drafts or standards), I have chapters 
and sections whose printed appearance is something like this:

4 Concepts

4.1 Data types

4.1.2 Character string types

In my XML sources for these documents, I use an element (e.g., <chapter>, 
<section>) with an id attribute to give a symbolic name to the chapter or 
section (e.g., <chapter id="concepts"><title>Concepts</title>..., <section 
id="datatypes"><title>Data types</title>...).  The number (e.g., 4, 4.1, 
4.1.2) is automatically computed based on the position in the document as a 
whole.

Within a given document, I can symbolically reference a chapter/section by 
referencing the value of the id attribute (e.g., <docref 
ref="datatypes"/>), which my XSLT stylesheet (which, as you see, picks up 
the chapter's/section's computed number and specified title) transforms to 
a link, such as:
   <fo:block ... >
   <fo:basic-link internal-destination="datatypes">
   Section 4.1, "Data types"
   </fo:basic_link>
   </fo:block>

When XEP renders that to PDF, I have a nice "hot link" from the reference 
to the reference section.

So far, so good.

Now for my problem:

Very frequently, from one part/document (e.g., part 5) I need to reference 
a chapter/section (and even other things that have such symbolic 
attributes)  that is defined in another part/document (e.g., part 
2).  Obviously, the required information is not so easily available for 
such interdocument references.

I would plan to use a different element (e.g., <externref part="2" 
ref="concepts"/>) for interdocument references.

The only idea I've had so far is to write a new XSLT stylesheet that 
processes each of my documents (one at a time, manually --- since I haven't 
gotten around to worrying about scripting issues) and outputs some sort of 
file containing nothing beyond the "values" of every symbol in that 
document.  Then, when I'm processing document 5 through my "real" 
stylesheet, it would somehow access all of the "symbol" files and pick up 
the chapter/section number and title.

Question 1) Does that seem like a reasonable approach?  Are there better 
approaches that I have managed to overlook or suppress?

Question 2) Would it be better if that "symbol" file were a plain text file 
(how would I access such information in XSLT?) or an XML file (something 
like <part2References><reference number="4" 
title="Concepts/><reference.../></part2References>)?  I assume that the 
information contained in an XML file would be more easily accessed in my XSLT.

Question 3) Once I have that information, how can I turn the text (e.g., 
Section 4.2, "Data types", in Part 2) into a "hot link" that will cause 
Acrobat to open the file containing part 2 and position it at the start of 
Section 4.2 --- or at least on the same page?  (I'm aware of the 
external-destination attribute, but have not been successful at making 
referenced PDF documents open at the right place.)  I'm unclear on whether 
or how the rx:outline and rx:bookmark extensions would help, particularly 
when there might be literally hundreds of referenceable destinations in a 
given document.

Any help, advice, guidance, or outright solutions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
    Jim
========================================================================
Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL)     Phone: +1.801.942.0144
Oracle Corporation            Oracle Email: mailto:jim.melton at oracle.com
1930 Viscounti Drive          Standards email: mailto:jim.melton at acm.org
Sandy, UT 84093-1063              Personal email: mailto:jim at melton.name
USA                                                Fax : +1.801.942.3345
========================================================================
=  Facts are facts.  However, any opinions expressed are the opinions  =
=  only of myself and may or may not reflect the opinions of anybody   =
=  else with whom I may or may not have discussed the issues at hand.  =
========================================================================

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