Subject: [xml2rfc-dev] <author> below <section>

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 20:52:57 +0100

Hi there,

So I was looking at <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8673.xml>, and,
to my huge surprise, found <author> elements below <section>, apparently
generated by the preptool step.

I checked, and this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere (not even
Henrik's implementation notes), but yet it turns up in "canonical XML".

Just to clarify - there are two issues here:

1) The technical issue: adding author information a second time in the
canonical XML does not make any sense to me.

2) The process issue: this isn't documented anywhere, but yet appears in
the so-called "canonical XML".

What is going on here?

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 21:17:59 +0000

> canonical XML does not make any sense to me.

Nor to me. 

> the so-called "canonical XML".

In fact, this usage is fully prohibited in draft-iab-rfc7991bis. <author> is only allowed as part of <front>.

It is also contra-indicated in the prose:
   The <author> elements contained within the document's <front> element
   are used to fill the boilerplate and also to generate the "Author's
   Address" section (see [RFC7322]).

--Paul Hoffman

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2019 10:22:11 +0100

On 27.11.2019 20:52, Julian Reschke wrote:
> ...

Reported as <https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/xml2rfc/trac/ticket/460>:

> The preptool mode inserts a back section containing author elements, apparently to give <xref>'s in the generated boilerplate/toc something to link to.
>
> There are multiple issues with that:
>
>     it violates the DRY principle
>     it is not documented anywhere
>     the inserted section is indistinguishable from a regular section - how is a formatter supposed to know when to process it?
>     it adds <author> to the content model of <section>
>
> (tested with 2.35, but there's no "Version" configured here for that)
>
> (see also <​https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis/issues/81> which discusses hiw to style *contributors* sections)

Best regards, Julian