Re: Failing To Understand The Creating An Outline Section

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008, Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
> 
> I've been trying to implement the creating an outline algorithm, but 
> have ended up getting confused. What do we end up with? Do we end up 
> with the outline associated with the current outlinee?

We start with a sectioning element, and end up with the outline for that 
element.


> It seems the sections and outlines we create need to be persistent even when
> "current section" and "current outlinee" don't refer to the elements which
> created the sections/outlines, but at the same time they need to be attached
> to those elements.

I'm not really sure what you mean. The "current outlinee" and "current 
section" are just variables whose value changes during the algorithm.


> "Append the outline of the sectioning content element being exited to the
> current section." — not append it to the outline of the current section?

No, the current section might not have an outline. Only sectioning 
elements have outlines.

A section is part of an outline. An outline is just a bunch of (possibly 
nested) sections. Appending to an outline puts it at the end of the 
outline with its first element as a peer to the first element in the 
target outline. Appending an outline to a section puts the outline deep 
inside the target outline.


> Having a substep called "Loop" is nothing but confusing: I spent at 
> least five minutes trying to work out how the hell we were meant to 
> implement that substep as a loop.

I'll rename it.


> The word "rank" was xref'd in the old version of the algorithm, but it 
> isn't any more. Can it be again?

Will fix.


> If we're meant to use it for building TOCs, what are we meant to do for 
> a section with no heading in the TOC? Insert black voodoo?

Call it "untitled section" or skip it and put all its children at its 
level or anything like that. The spec doesn't define how you do the 
numbering or anything, it just says what section each node is part of and 
which heading applies to each section.


> Oh, and why are most of the substeps not numbered but some are?

No particular reason.

-- 
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