At 09:50 AM 3/31/2006, Terry Badger wrote: >Is there a way to push the auto numbers ing >information generated in FM into the xml file? >I don't see any variables to grab and put into an > xml attribute. ===================================== What you describe is a serious incompatibility between the FrameMaker autonumbering approach and that used in SGML and XML. In the latter two, the numbering must somehow be restored by a FOSI or DSSL (in SGML) or XSLT in XML. In many types of documents ( e.g., regulatory, legal, aircraft maintenance), preservation of the original numbering is crucial. And when XML data is stored in, and retrieved from, a database or CMS, the numbering must be retained in the database so that, if you query the database to retrieve a particular numbered section by itself, the query can be successful simply by specifying its unique number, and that number must also appear in the retrieved section.
In many cases the numbering scheme itself is non-sequential. That is, the number itself conveys information about the content. An example is Air Transport Association (ATA) publications, which provide a way for users to identify the information applicable to a particular task by means of the numbering system itself. All the user needs to do to retrieve the needed information or procedure from a database is to issue a query that specifies the applicable number, and the delivered content (containing only the desired information) is properly numbered Clearly, there is only one workable solution, and that is to create a set of attributes--a separate attribute for each level of the number, and, in structured FrameMaker, EDD prefix rules use those attribute values to construct the number. When a document using this method is round-tripped between FrameMaker and an XML database, all numbering is preserved. Admittedly, this means autonumbering of documents must be abandoned, which adds the burden of properly maintaing the corrrect numbering in the associated attributes. Usually, it's possible to continue to use autonumbering for numbered lists, because (usually) nothing less than the entire list can be retrieved, and thus it is easy, using XSLT, to reconstruct the sequential numbering. Dan Emory & Associates FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing <danemory7224 at sbcglobal.net>
