RE: [xliff] Cloning of <g> elements

Title: Message

Hi 
Magnus,

 

I believe that 
(a) is a reasonable assumption to make. If you don't carry across all the 
attributes (DNA?) of the original tag then would it really be a 
clone?

 

As I understand 
it, the cloning ability is there primarily to allow for formatting that needs to 
be split in the <target> element because the original 
text span has been split in the translation. For example:

 

<source>The <g id="1" ctype="bold">big black</g> 
cat.</source>

<target>The <g id="1" ctype="bold">gros</g> chat <g 
id="1" ctype="bold">noir</g>.</target>

 

I understand that 
you might want to clone the <source> tags in order to 
segment the original source text. Although I'm not overly familiar with the work 
of the segmentation subcommittee I would guess that you're looking to introduce 
something along the lines of <seg>....</seg> in the 
<source> element and that XML rules dictate that you're 
not allowed to have <seg>...<g>...</seg> so 
you'd be looking to replace this with 
<seg>...<g>...</g></seg><g> with 
the <g> being cloned (I have an HTML verifier which does 
something similar).

 

What makes me 
nervous is the fact that the <g> might not be "clonable" 
and that the original XLIFF filter wouldn't be able to handle multiple 
occurrences of a particular <g> tag. Is there a reason 
why it's not possible to simply use an empty <seg/> tag 
to indicate where the text should be segmented? This would mean that you 
wouldn't have to clone elements from the original 
<source> and also has the added advantage that 
this element can simply be ignored when the XLIFF file is merged later in the 
process.

 

FWIW, I 
think that an element would have to have an explicit 
clone="yes" before it can be cloned with 
confidence.

 

Regards

 

David Pooley
Software 
Architect
SDL International

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Magnus Martikainen 
[mailto:] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 11:13 
PM
To: xliff
Subject: [xliff] Cloning of <g> 
elements

Hi all,

 

Following a discussion in the 
segmentation subcommittee today I took an action item to post a question to the 
main XLIFF committee requesting a clarification on how cloning of <g> 
elements should work.

 

As you may be aware, the <g> 
element has an optional attribute named clone, with a default value "yes". This 
implies that all <g> elements that do not have an explicit clone="no" 
attribute value may be cloned by any tool processing the XLIFF 
content.

 

This functionality is of special 
interest to the segmentation subcommittee, and our current work-in-progress 
proposal for representation of segments relies on the ability to clone <g> 
elements that span segment boundaries in order to be able to introduce 
segments.

 

For these reasons I would like to 
have the following assumptions confirmed:

a)       
When a <g> element 
is cloned, all attribute values of the original <g> element, including the 
id and xid values, are replicated into the clone.

 

Example: 

<source>Some <g 
id="1" ctype="bold" xid="42" ts="offset:983">marked-up</g> 
text.</source>

<target>Some <g 
id="1" ctype="bold" xid="42" ts="offset:983">translated</g> marked-up 
<g id="1" ctype="bold" xid="42" 
ts="offset:983">text</g>.</target>

 

 

b)      
The current specification 
mentions that multiple copies of the source <g> element may be placed in 
the <target> content. For segmentation purposes we would also need to 
clone them inside <source>. Would this be a reasonable 
extension?

 

Whatever the outcome I would suggest 
that we update the XLIFF 1.1 specification to clarify how this mechanism is 
intended to work.

 

Best 
regards,

Magnus 
Martikainen