3.9.3 <prop>

The <prop> element identifies an attribute, and usually values in the attribute, to take an action on. The attribute either must be a conditional-processing attribute (@platform, @product, @audience, @deliveryTarget, @props, and @otherprops) or a specialization of the @props attribute.

A <prop> element can do one of the following:
  • A <prop> element with no @att attribute specified sets a default action for every <prop> element. It is an error to use more than one <prop> element with no attribute in a single document. Recovery from this error is implementation dependent; in such cases processors MAY provide an error or warning message.
  • A <prop> element with an @att attribute but no @val attribute sets a default action for that specific attribute or attribute group. For each specific attribute, it is an error to use more than one <prop> element with that attribute and no value in a single document. Recovery from this error is implementation dependent; in such cases processors MAY provide an error or warning message.
  • A <prop> element with an @att attribute and a @val attribute sets an action for that value within that attribute or attribute group. It is an error to use more than one <prop> element with the same attribute and value. Recovery from this error is implementation dependent; in such cases processors MAY provide an error or warning message.

Contains

startflag (optional) then endflag (optional)

Contained by

val

Example

See the example in the <val> description.

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element:
@att
The attribute to be acted upon. If using a literal attribute name, it must be one of @props, @audience, @platform, @product, @otherprops, @deliveryTarget, or a specialization of @props. Otherwise, the value should be the name of a group used within the @audience, @platform, @product, or @otherprops attributes. If the @att attribute is absent, then the <prop> element declares a default behavior for any conditional processing attribute.
@val
The value to be acted upon. If the @val attribute is absent, then the <prop> element declares a default behavior for any value in the specified attribute.
@action (REQUIRED)
The action to be taken. Allowable values are:
include
Include the content in output. This is the default behavior unless otherwise set.
exclude
Exclude the content from output (if all values in the particular attribute are excluded).
passthrough
Include the content in output, and preserve the attribute value as part of the output stream for further processing by a runtime engine, for example runtime filtering based on individual user settings. The value should be preserved in whatever syntax is required by the target runtime. Values that are not explicitly passed through should be removed from the output stream, even though the content is still included.
flag
Include and flag the content on output (if the content has not been excluded).
@color
If flag has been set, the color to use to flag text. Colors can be entered by name or code. Processors SHOULD support the color names listed under the heading "<color>" in http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xsl11-20061205/#datatype and for the 6 digit hex code form (#rrggbb, case insensitive). If flag has not been set, this attribute is ignored.
@backcolor
If flag has been set, the color to use as background for flagged text. Colors can be entered by name or code. Processor support is recommended for the color names listed under the heading "<color>" in http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xsl11-20061205/#datatype and for the 6 digit hex code form (#rrggbb, case insensitive). If flag has not been set, this attribute is ignored.
@style

If flag has been set, the text styles to use for flagged text. This attribute can contain multiple space-delimited tokens. The following tokens SHOULD be processed by all DITAVAL processors:

  • underline
  • double-underline
  • italics
  • overline
  • bold

In addition, processors might support other proprietary tokens for different types of styling. Such tokens SHOULD have a processor-specific prefix to identify them as proprietary. If a processor encounters an unsupported style token, it MAY issue a warning, and MAY render content flagged with such a style token using some default formatting.

If flag has not been set, this attribute is ignored.