`<section>`

A section is an organizational division in a topic. Sections are used to organize subsets of information that are directly related to the topic.

Usage information

Multiple sections within a single topic do not represent a hierarchy, but rather peer divisions of that topic. Sections cannot be nested. Sections can have titles.

Note: For maximum flexibility in creating specializations, sections allow plain text as well as phrase and block level elements. Because of the way XML grammars are defined within a DTD, any element that allows plain text cannot restrict the order or frequency of other elements. As a result, the <section> element allows <title> to appear anywhere as a child of <section>. However, the intent of the specification is that <title> only be used once in any <section>, and when used, that it precede any other text or element content.

Rendering expectations

Processors SHOULD treat the presence of more than one <title> element in a <section> element as an error.

Attributes

The following attributes are available on this element: universal attributes.

Example

The following code sample shows how element-reference topics in the DITA specification use titled sections to provide a consistent structure for grouping information:

<reference id="p" xml:lang="en-us">
  <title><xmlelement>p</xmlelement></title>
  <shortdesc conkeyref="library-short-descriptions/p"/>
  <refbody>
    <section><title>Usage information</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Rendering expectations</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Processing expectations</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Specialization hierarchy</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </section>
    <section><title>Attributes</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </section>
    <example><title>Example</title>
      <p>...</p>
    </example>
  </refbody>
</reference>