Composite (ditabase)

The composite or ditabase topic is a now obsolete tool for collecting multiple topics and nesting them within a single topic file.

In the early days of DITA, the composite, or ditabase, information type was developed as a way of collecting topics together for publication before the ditamap was created.

The ditabase composite topic allows other topics (of any information type) to be nested within it.

The ditamap is a superior method for collecting topics together, and should always be used in preference to ditabase.

However, ditabase still has some use as a container for re-use information, because it allows concept, task, reference and other information type elements to be contained within the same topic. This can be useful if you want to organise snippets of conref source information into a single topic.

Do not use ditabase as a means of creating an output topic with mixed information types. If this is necessary, you should use the chunk attribute as an alternative.

The root element of a ditabase topic is dita.