div

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.3 Part 2: Technical Content Edition

Document
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Version 1.3 Part 2: Technical Content Edition
Version
1.3
Author
OASIS DITA Technical Committee

The div element is used to organize subsets of content into logical groups that are not intended to be or should not be contained as a topic.

The div element is designed to be a grouping element; it does not imply any explicit semantics or contain an explicit title. This avoids enabling the creation of deeply-nested content that would otherwise be written as separate topics. If the content requires a title, use a section element, a nested topic, or possibly a fig element.

Content models

See appendix for information about this element in OASIS document type shells.

Inheritance

- topic/div

Example

Figure. Using div for grouping

In the following example, a div element is used to organize several elements together so that they can be referenced by conref or conkeyref:

...
<div id="div-01">
 <p>The first paragraph</p>
 <p>The second paragraph</p>
 <note>This is a note</note>
</div>
...

Without using a div element, the content could not be grouped for content referencing since the start and end elements are of different types.

Figure. Using div for specialization

In the following example, div is used as the basis for specializing a new domain element, pullquote:

<!ENTITY % pullquote.content
  "(%div.cnt;)*"
>
<!ENTITY % pullquote.attributes
             "%univ-atts;
              outputclass 
                        CDATA 
                                  #IMPLIED"
>
<!ELEMENT pullquote    %pullquote.content;>
<!ATTLIST pullquote    %pullquote.attributes;>

<!ATTLIST pullquote      %global-atts;  class CDATA "+ topic/div pubcontent-d/pullquote ">

Instances of pullquote could then be used in both body and section contexts:

<topic id="article-01">
  <title>My Article</title>
  <body>
    <p>Something pithy someone said</p>
    <pullquote><p>Something Pithy</p></pullquote>
    <!-- ... -->
    <section spectitle="Deep Dive">
      <p>This is really really pithy</p>
      <pullquote><p>Really Pithy</p></pullquote>
      <!-- ... -->
    </section>
  </body>
</topic>

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element: Universal attribute group and outputclass.