3.2.4.1.1 glossentry

The <glossentry> element defines a single sense of a glossary term. Glossary entries for different term senses can be reused independently of one another. DITA 1.2 adds several elements to the glossentry topic type, allowing it to specify additional information about a term (beyond just the definition).

The recommended (but not required) book processing is to sort and group glossary entries based on the localized term so a back-of-the-book glossary can contain a collated list of terms with the definitions of the individual senses of each term indented under the term. The glossary can have a different organization in different languages depending on the translation of the terms. One possible implementation of a glossary in online processing is to associate a hotspot for mentions of terms in <term> elements and display the definition on hover or click.

Contains

Doctype

Content model

ditabase, glossary, glossentry, glossgroup

( (glossterm) then (glossdef) (optional) then (prolog) (optional) then (glossBody) (optional) then (related-links) (optional) then (no-topic-nesting) (any number) )

Contained by

Doctype

Content model

ditabase

dita, topic, concept, task, reference, glossgroup

glossgroup

glossgroup

Inheritance

- topic/topic concept/concept glossentry/glossentry

Example

Figure 3-51 The glossary term "USB flash drive" with additional information

<glossentry id="usbfd">
  <glossterm>USB flash drive</glossterm>
  <glossdef>A small portable drive.</glossdef>
  <glossBody>
    <glossPartOfSpeech value="noun"/>
    <glossUsage>Do not provide in upper case (as in "USB Flash
Drive") because that suggests a trademark.</glossUsage>
    <glossAlt>
      <glossAcronym>UFD</glossAcronym>
      <glossUsage>Explain the acronym on first occurrence.</glossUsage>
    </glossAlt>
    <glossAlt id="memoryStick">
      <glossSynonym>memory stick</glossSynonym>
      <glossUsage>This is a colloquial term.</glossUsage>
    </glossAlt>
    <glossAlt>
      <glossAbbreviation>stick</glossAbbreviation>
      <glossStatus value="prohibited"/>
      <glossUsage>This is too colloquial.</glossUsage>
      <glossAlternateFor href="#usbfd/memoryStick"/>
    </glossAlt>
    <glossAlt>
      <glossAbbreviation>flash</glossAbbreviation>
      <glossStatus value="prohibited"/>
      <glossUsage>This short form is ambiguous.</glossUsage>
    </glossAlt>
  </glossBody>
</glossentry>
Attributes

Name

Description

Data Type

Default Value

Required?

id

This ID enables topics to be referenced uniquely by topicrefs in DITA maps.

ID

 

Yes

conref-atts attribute group (conref, conrefend, conaction, conkeyref)

A set of related attributes; includes all of the attributes described in 3.4.1.4 id-atts attribute group except for the id attribute.

     

xmlns:ditaarch

Declares the default DITA namespace.

 

"http://dita.​oasis-open.​org/​architecture/​2005/"

 

DITAArchVersion

Designates the version of the architecture that is in use. The default value will increase with each release of DITA.

CDATA

"1.2"

No

domains

Indicates the specialized domains that are included in the DTD or Schema. This value will differ depending on what domains are included in the current DTD or Schema.

CDATA

Varies based on the DTD or Schema; a sample value is "(topic ui-d) (topic hi-d) (topic pr-d) (topic sw-d) (topic ut-d) (topic indexing-d)"

No

select-atts attribute group (props, base, platform, product, audience, otherprops, importance, rev, status)

A set of related attributes, described in 3.4.1.5 select-atts attribute group

     

localization-atts attribute group (translate, xml:lang, dir)

A set of related attributes, described in 3.4.1.6 localization-atts attribute group.

     

global-atts attribute group (xtrf, xtrc)

A set of related attributes, described in 3.4.1.2 global-atts attribute group

     

class, outputclass

Common attributes described in 3.4.1.9 Other common DITA attributes

     

Previous Topic:  3.2.4.1 Glossentry elements

Next Topic:  3.2.4.1.2 glossterm

Parent Topic:  3.2.4.1 Glossentry elements

Sibling Topics:

3.2.4.1.2 glossterm

3.2.4.1.3 glossdef

3.2.4.1.4 glossAbbreviation

3.2.4.1.5 glossAcronym

3.2.4.1.6 glossAlt

3.2.4.1.7 glossAlternateFor

3.2.4.1.8 glossBody

3.2.4.1.9 glossPartOfSpeech

3.2.4.1.10 glossProperty

3.2.4.1.11 glossScopeNote

3.2.4.1.12 glossShortForm

3.2.4.1.13 glossStatus

3.2.4.1.14 glossSurfaceForm

3.2.4.1.15 glossSymbol

3.2.4.1.16 glossSynonym

3.2.4.1.17 glossUsage