Interaction of initial structure pattern and table format

["Lynne A. Price" <lprice@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I ran into an interesting XML import bug today (FM 7.0, Windows). The XML 
representation of a table need not account for all the table component 
elements that are required in the FM equivalent. For example, markup such as:

<table cols="4">
<row></row>
</table>

may result in the FM structure

(table)
  |--(body)
       |--(row)
             |--(cell)
             |--(cell)
             |--(cell)
             |--(cell)

even though the XML markup does not explicitly contain a table body element 
or the various cell elements. In fact, the different "implied" cell 
elements may have different tags. The same markup fragment could result in:

(table)
  |--(body)
       |--(row)
             |--(city)
             |--(county)
             |--(state)
             |--(population)

Tags for elements automatically created as part of the inherent structure 
of a table are specified in the EDD in the initial structure pattern for 
the row element. In the above case, suppose the initial structure pattern 
is "city, county, state, population, altitude, rainfall".  If the table has 
6 or fewer columns, cells along the row are tagged with successive names 
from the initial structure pattern. If there are more than 6 columns, the 
7th and succeeding columns repeat the last tag in the initial structure 
pattern ("rainfall" in this case).

Another aspect of table tagging and formatting is the table format. One 
property stored in a table format is the initial number of columns. This is 
the number to which the Columns text box in the Insert Table dialog box is 
initialized when you insert a new table of the specified format. It is set 
when you create a table format and can be changed by updating the table 
format from a table with a different number of columns or by changing the 
number of columns when inserting a table of the specified format.

The bug is that when importing a table from XML, FM does not use all of the 
initial structure pattern if the table has more than the initial number of 
columns. It uses successive tags from the initial structure pattern until 
it has tagged the initial number of cells, and then repeats the last of 
those tags for any remaining cells. Suppose the initial number of columns 
is 3 and FM is importing a row of a 6-column table that has the initial 
structure pattern is "city, county, state, population, altitude, rainfall". 
Instead of the expected "city, county, state, population, altitude, 
rainfall" cells, FM creates "city, county, state, state, state, state". An 
easy workaround, of course, is to make sure the initial number of columns 
is at least as big as the number of tags specified in the initial structure 
pattern.

Note that this problem does not occur when editing interactively. If you 
insert a 6-column table from the user interface using the above table 
format and initial structure pattern, FM uses all 6 tags in the initial 
structure pattern.

        --Lynne





Lynne A. Price
Text Structure Consulting, Inc.
Specializing in structured FrameMaker consulting, application development, 
and training
lprice@xxxxxxxxxxxx            http://www.txstruct.com
voice/fax: (510) 583-1505      cell phone: (510) 421-2284 



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