Elements in the DITA Math Domain

This page contains a list of the elements supplied to implement a DITA math domain.

Body elements

These elements are generally available for use wherever text is allowed.

math

Attributes:

Note that one has a choice:

1. Include MathML directly and do not specify href, format, or conref.
2. Do not include child elements, specify the conref attribute but not href and format.
3. Do not include child elements, specify the href and format attributes but not conref.

If the expression is to be included directly, one and only one child element is allowed.

This element will render at the same level as paragraph content. It is intended to be used for stand-alone expressions.

mathph

Attributes:

Note that one has a choice:

1. Include MathML directly and do not specify href, format, or conref.
2. Do not include child elements, specify the conref attribute but not href and format.
3. Do not include child elements, specify the href and format attributes but not conref.

If the expression is to be included directly, one and only one child element is allowed.

This element will render at the sentence level. It is intended to be used for inline expressions.

equation

Inherits from fig. This is a container for a mathematical expression which includes an optional title and which serves as a target for an xref element with type="eq". It contains a math element followed by an optional eqsymbols element. If it is copied into the current context with conref=, then the copy retains all of the properties described by the children of the source, except for those which are overridden by explicitly specifying them in this context.

symname

The symname element (see below) may be used to reference a symbol used in an equation from the text.

Equation specific elements

An equation element may contain a list of symbol definitions which explain the terms used in the formula. These symbol definitions are symbol/text pairs much like a parameter list. Authors may refer to any symbol defined in this list from the text.

eqsymbols

This element contains all of the symbols which the author chooses to define. If the containing equation element is not in a mathexpression reference page, then these are the only symbols defined for the associated expression. If it is within a mathexpression reference page, then all of the symbols defined for the page are inherited unless they are overridden here.

eqsymbol

Contains a name/description pair.

symname

Contains the symbol name. Also references the symbol if present in a block of text with the conref= attribute set. Must contain a mml:math element if conref= is not set, and the mml:math element should be limited to containing a single <ci>, <mi>, or <csymbol> element.

symdesc

Contains a symbol description. This will appear in the tabular presentation of symbols, so it should be at least a complete sentence and may be a short paragraph.

symdescph

Contains a brief symbol description. This will appear in an inline presentation of symbols, so it should be brief, a sentence fragment. It should be written to fit the pattern "symbol is symdescph".

Symbol list Elements

The elements in this section present the defined symbols to the reader. The presentation may be tabular or inline. In addition, one may present the list of symbols for a single equation or may choose to consolidate the symbol list from many equations.

eqdefs_ph

An inline phrase which presents a list of all the symbols and definitions. Contains one or more xref elements, each of which specifies a single equation from which to display symbols. The final result should be deterministic: e.g., "symbol1 is descriptive phrase1, symbol2 is descriptive phrase2 and symbol3 is descriptive phrase 3". May contain an optional eqsymbols element which overrides particular symbols and adds to the list of symbols discovered by the xref mechanism. The default is to define all symbols for all equations included by any topic referenced in the top-level map.

eqdefs_tbl

A tabular presentation of the symbols and corresponding definitions. Each symbol/description pair occurs in a single row of the table. The description here is intended to be more complete than the descriptive phrase. Contains one or more xref elements, each of which specifies a single equation from which to display symbols. The result here can be less deterministic, as it is not intended to be integrated into a sentence. May contain an optional eqsymbols element which overrides particular symbols and adds to the list of symbols discovered by the xref mechanism. The default is to define all symbols for all equations included by any topic referenced in the top-level map.

Math Topic Elements

This topic type, which specializes a standard DITA reference topic, allows users to associate content and presentation expressions with an OpenMath symbol. It also allows users to declare content and presentation expressions (along with their symbol definitions) which they can later reuse.

Do we need to redeclare all the elements used in this specialization or just the ones we wish to specialize?

We should specialize the properties family of elements so that the author can define the symbols used in this topic's equations only once. Or perhaps use the eqsymbols family of elements in their stead. Can we do that?

mathexpression

Inherits from reference. May contain shortdesc, desc, prolog, and everything else a reference element contains.

mathbody

Inherits from refbody. May contain expressions.

expression

Inherits from section. May contain only one equation, but otherwise may contain any combination of text, tables, figures, etc. The type attribute of the equation declares whether this expression is a content or presentation expression.