ID's

[JanetC]

Can someone help.  We are new end users of xmetal ie no direct server access and we are coming across a lot of duplicate id errors when we check in tables.  Is there a way we can get a report off to find the location of the duplicates rather than having to click in every single cell to find the id's to remove.  Thanks

[Derek Read]

Does this mean you are setting id values on table cells, the <entry> element?
Is this being done automatically by the software using the "auto id" feature that is configurable in Tools > DITA Options?
If so, I'm not sure why that would occur.

If this is difficult for you to describe perhaps attaching a sample file would help. Knowing the topic type, the general construction of the file and the table may give us a better chance at figuring out what is occurring.

Please also let us know what you mean by these statements:
1. "We are new end users of xmetal ie no direct server access..."
2. "...when we check in tables"

Does this mean you are using a CMS system but do not have an integration for it for XMetaL?
Perhaps that is why id values in table cells are important to you (a CMS requirement)?
I can't think of any other reason why someone would want to set an id on an <entry> element (though I'm not aware of any CMS systems that require this either).

[JanetC]

Hi Derek thanks for the quick response.  Sorry didnt explain myself very well, probably because I dont fully understand it.  When I say we are end users I suppose I mean we are just administrators, ie have no access to the application set up or have any control.   We are using it as the editor for the CMS system and I assume whoever set it up has set it so that it gives auto ids when we check in a document  to the system.  The problem we are having is that we have "collections" that have been converted from another system into ours and these appear to have come in with duplicate id's in any tables in documents.  We are in the process of editing these and if we add a line to the table and then try to check it in it rejects because of duplicates but only if we add a line.  It goes in ok if it is just text changes.    Consequently we have to click on every cell in the table to remove the id and in some cases it isnt every cell.  What I was hoping for is a way of getting a report or something off that showed the location of the duplicates without having to click on each cell and check the attribute inspector.  Hopefully that will make a bit more sense now............!

[Derek Read]

A script could be written to fix documents up during saving, or to provide you with a list of attributes with duplicate id values, but that isn't really the solution I think. The software should be giving elements unique id values. Perhaps your specific version has a bug that we are not aware of.

Note that such documents in DITA are valid XML according to the DITA DTDs so our XML validation will not complain. This is because these id attributes are not defined as true ID type attributes (in which case the XML recommendation itself says they must be unique). We don't currently have any logic to check for these in DITA (which as part of that spec says they should be unique) because the auto-id feature is supposed to only insert unique values.

Please let me know the full version number (from Help > About XMetaL Author Enterprise...) and also provide a sample document we can look at. It is still not clear to me which part of a table you are talking about, though it sounds like <entry> elements.

It really does sound like you have an integration with a CMS system. If so, it is possible that the CMS integration is setting these values in XMetaL (through our APIs) or perhaps during the check-in process. If I can reproduce the issue without the CMS installed (by having your full version number and a sample document) then we can eliminate that possibility. If I cannot reproduce the issue then we can assume the CMS is influencing things.

If you do not wish to provide sample content here please submit a support case through our standard support channels.

[Derek Read]

Another option, if you don't need id attributes to be automatically set, would be to stop the product from doing that. To do that remove the element named "entry" from the list of elements to auto-id. This is done in Tools > DITA Options. See attached screen capture.