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Language reference: All-inclusive edition
The language reference portion of the DITA specification contains a topic for each DITA element. The topic defines the element, its inheritance hierarchy, and provides examples of usage. This portion of the DITA specification also includes information about DITA attributes.
Metadata elements
Metadata elements include information that is located within the <topicmeta> element (in maps) or <prolog> element (in topics), as well as indexing elements that can be placed in additional locations within topic content.
Prolog (metadata) elements
The prolog elements represent the metadata associated with a document. Most of the metadata in a topic prolog can also be authored in a DITA map, in the map's <topicmeta> element.
<metadata>
The <metadata> section of the <prolog> contains information about a topic such as audience and product information. Metadata can be used by computational processes to select particular topics or to prepare search indexes or to customize navigation. Elements inside of <metadata> provide information about the content and subject of a topic; <prolog> elements outside of <metadata> provide lifecycle information for the content unit (such as the author or copyright), which are unrelated to the subject.

Specification URIs
Notices
Introduction to DITA 1.3
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information, as well as a set of mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types.
Architectural specification: All-inclusive edition
The architectural specification portion of the DITA specification outlines the framework of DITA. It contains an overview of DITA markup; addressing; processing; configuration, specialization, generalization, and constraints; as well as information about coding DITA grammar files.
Language reference: All-inclusive edition
The language reference portion of the DITA specification contains a topic for each DITA element. The topic defines the element, its inheritance hierarchy, and provides examples of usage. This portion of the DITA specification also includes information about DITA attributes.
- Element quick reference
  This section contains a listing of DITA elements.
- Topic elements
  The base topic elements include elements that make up the core building blocks of the DITA topic, such as topic, body, and related-links, as well as elements like <p> and <ph> that are used in many topic specializations. Some of these elements are also available inside the <topicmeta> map element.
- Map elements
  Map elements include the core components of DITA maps, such as <topicref> and <reltable>, as well as general purpose map specializations in the map group domain.
- Metadata elements
  Metadata elements include information that is located within the <topicmeta> element (in maps) or <prolog> element (in topics), as well as indexing elements that can be placed in additional locations within topic content.
  - Prolog (metadata) elements
    The prolog elements represent the metadata associated with a document. Most of the metadata in a topic prolog can also be authored in a DITA map, in the map's <topicmeta> element.
    - <prolog>
      The <prolog> element contains information about the topic as an whole (for example, author information or subject category) that is either entered by the author or maintained by a software application. Much of the metadata inside the <prolog> will not be displayed with the topic when the topic is rendered, but it might be used by processes that generate search indexes or customize navigation.
    - <audience>
      The <audience> metadata element indicates, through the value of its @type attribute, the intended audience for a topic.
    - <author>
      The <author> metadata element contains the name of the topic's author.
    - <brand>
      The <brand> element indicates the manufacturer or brand associated with the product described by the parent <prodinfo> element.
    - <category>
      The <category> element represents any category by which a topic might be classified for retrieval or navigation. For example, the categories could be used to group topics in a generated navigation bar. Topics can belong to multiple categories.
    - <component>
      The <component> element describes the component of the product that this topic is concerned with. For example, a product might be made up of many components, each of which is installable separately. Components might also be shared by several products so that the same component is available for installation with many products. An implementation might use this identification to check cross-component dependencies when some components are installed, but not others. An implementation might use the identification to make sure that topics are hidden, removed, or flagged in some way when the component they describe isn't installed.
    - <copyright>
      The <copyright> element specifies legal ownership of the content.
    - <copyrholder>
      The <copyrholder> element names the copyright holder that holds legal rights to the material contained in the topic.
    - <copyryear>
      The <copyryear> element contains the copyright year as specified by the @year attribute.
    - <created>
      The <created> element specifies the document creation date using the @date attribute.
    - <critdates>
      The <critdates> element contains the critical dates in a document life cycle, such as the creation date and multiple revision dates.
    - <featnum>
      The <featnum> element contains the feature number of a product in the metadata.
    - <keywords>
      The <keywords> element contains a list of terms from a controlled or uncontrolled subject vocabulary that applies to the topic or map. The keywords can be used by a search engine. The keywords are marked up using the <indexterm> and/or <keyword> elements.
    - <metadata>
      The <metadata> section of the <prolog> contains information about a topic such as audience and product information. Metadata can be used by computational processes to select particular topics or to prepare search indexes or to customize navigation. Elements inside of <metadata> provide information about the content and subject of a topic; <prolog> elements outside of <metadata> provide lifecycle information for the content unit (such as the author or copyright), which are unrelated to the subject.
    - <othermeta>
      The <othermeta> element can be used to identify properties not otherwise included in <metadata> and to assign name/content values to those properties. The @name attribute identifies the property and the @content attribute specifies the property's value. All <othermeta> elements are considered part of the topic's metadata and should be reflected in the output as appropriate for the output medium.
    - <permissions>
      The <permissions> element in a topic's metadata specifies the level of entitlement needed to access the content.
    - <platform>
      The <platform> metadata element contains a description of the operating system and/or hardware related to the product being described by the <prodinfo> element. The <platform> element can be used to provide a more detailed definition of values used throughout the map or topic on the @platform attribute.
    - <prodinfo>
      The <prodinfo> metadata element contains information about the product or products that are the subject matter of the current topic. The <prodinfo> element also can be used to provide a more detailed definition of values used throughout the map or topic on the @product attribute.
    - <prodname>
      The <prodname> metadata element contains the name of the product that is supported by the information in this topic.
    - <prognum>
      The <prognum> metadata element identifies the program number of the associated product. This is typically an order number or a product tracking code that could be replaced by an order number when a product completes development.
    - <publisher>
      The <publisher> metadata element contains the name of the person, company, or organization responsible for making the content or subject of the topic available.
    - <resourceid>
      The <resourceid> element provides an identifier for applications that must use their own identifier scheme, such as context-sensitive help systems and databases.
    - <revised>
      The <revised> metadata element is used to maintain tracking dates that are important in a topic development cycle, such as the last modification date, the original availability date, and the expiration date.
    - <series>
      The <series> metadata element contains information about the product series that the topic supports.
    - <source>
      The <source> element identifies a resource from which the present topic is derived, either completely or in part.
    - <vrmlist>
      The <vrmlist> element contains a set of <vrm> elements for logging the version, release, and modification information for multiple products or versions of products to which the topic applies.
    - <vrm>
      The <vrm> element contains information about a single product's version, modification, and release, to which the current topic applies.
  - Indexing group elements
    The indexing domain provides elements for use with indexing. The elements allow authors to define "See" and "See also" references, and to override the default sort order for a term.
  - Delayed conref resolution elements
    The delayed conref resolution domain provides several elements for use when using DITA in situations that enable delayed or delivery time resolution of conref. The elements allow users to resolve some conref values statically, while delaying others for later resolution.
- Domain elements
  General purpose domains are not specific to any type of information, such as the hazard statement domain that provides elements for describing hazardous situations.
- Classification elements
  Classification elements support managing metadata. Those in the subject scheme map are used to define controlled values and to bind the controlled values to DITA attributes as enumerations. Those declared in the classification domain are used in other maps to classify content according to the scheme.
- Specialization elements
  Several DITA elements exist either for architectural reasons or for support of specialized markup yet to be designed. Although there is little need to use these elements unless you are directed to, some of them, such as <state>, can be used if your content makes use of these semantic distinctions. For example, a discussion of signals on a gate of an integrated logic circuit might use the <state> element to represent either on or off conditions of that gate.
- Legacy conversion elements
  Conversion elements exist primarily to aid in the conversion of content to DITA.
- DITAVAL elements
  A conditional processing profile (DITAVAL file) is used to identify which values are to be used for conditional processing during a particular output, build, or some other purpose. The profile should have an extension of .ditaval.
- Technical content elements
  Elements in the technical content section include the original Concept, Task, and Reference specializations, as well as specializations added in later releases. It also includes domains designed primarily for technical content.
- Learning and training elements
  Elements in the learning and training section include specialized topics, maps, content, and metadata elements specially designed to support instructional content.
- Attributes
  This section collects commonly used attributes, with common definitions. If an element uses a different definition, or narrows the scope of, an otherwise common attribute, it will be called out in the topic that defines the element.
Conformance
Conformance to the DITA specification allows documents and document types that are used with different processors or different versions of a processor to produce the same or similar results with little or no reimplementation or modification.
Acknowledgments
(Non-normative) Many members of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee participated in the creation of this specification and are gratefully acknowledged.
Non-normative information
This section contains non-normative information, including topics about new features in DITA 1.3 and migrating from DITA 1.2 to DITA 1.3.
Content models for learning and training package
For each element in the learning and training package, this section presents the content model and a list of parent elements that can contain that element.

`<metadata>`

The <metadata> section of the <prolog> contains information about a topic such as audience and product information. Metadata can be used by computational processes to select particular topics or to prepare search indexes or to customize navigation. Elements inside of <metadata> provide information about the content and subject of a topic; <prolog> elements outside of <metadata> provide lifecycle information for the content unit (such as the author or copyright), which are unrelated to the subject.

Beginning with DITA 1.2, the <metadata> element is available inside <topicmeta> in maps, although the contents of <metadata> are still available directly inside <topicmeta>. As with the <prolog>, the <metadata> element within <topicmeta> allows you to group elements that describe the content or subject of the target. The primary purpose for enabling the <metadata> element within maps is to allow easier reuse between topics and maps.

Content models

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

Inheritance

- topic/metadata

Example

Metadata within a topic:

<prolog>
  <metadata>
    <audience type="user" job="using" experiencelevel="novice"/>
  </metadata>
</prolog>

Metadata within a map:

<topicref href="metadata.dita" navtitle="metadata element">
  <topicmeta>
    <metadata>
      <keywords>
        <indexterm>metadata element</indexterm>
      </keywords>
    </metadata>
  </topicmeta>
</topicref>

Attributes

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