Omni Systems, Inc. Mif2Go User's Guide, Version 55
> 35 Producing deliverable results > 35.4 Clearing out old files before converting > 35.4.3 Understanding when not to delete .ref and .htm files
If the files you are converting have no interfile
links, you do not need.ref
files. However,
if there are interfile links, .ref
files are
essential to make any links to split parts point to the correct split
file (see §18.2 Splitting files).
If you are converting to any HTML output type,
in the following situations you must provide
an explicit setting for EmptyOutputFiles
that
does not include *.ref
:
EmptyOutputDir
=Book
,
and you are converting a book that has interbook links
EmptyOutputDir
=File
,
and you are converting a file that has interfile links.
External links require keeping .ref files
By default, Mif2Go deletes *.ref
when
EmptyOutputDir
is in play (see §35.4.1 Specifying when to delete old files from the project
directory) and there is no explicit setting for
EmptyOutputFiles
(see §35.4.2 Specifying which files to delete from the project directory).
When reference files are removed, you lose the information added from
other books or files that were already converted. If you are running
a series of such conversions, you can delete *.ref
files before the first conversion, but not thereafter.
On the other hand, a .ref
file might actually be inaccurate if it covers a version of a file that
has different page breaks; and .ref
files clutter
the project directory. It is best to remove them when you are about to
reconvert an entire book.
External links might require keeping .htm files
When you are converting a single file with external
links (such as a chapter of a book), for links from
the file being converted, the .ref
s for the
files referenced are needed. For links to
a file being converted, the .ref
for that file
is needed by the other files. The other .htm
files are needed too, because the file being converted might patch other
.htm
files when references shift to a different
split part. Therefore, removing .htm
files
is hazardous when there are interfile references of any sort; broken
links can result.
On the other hand, obsolete and orphaned .htm
files can end up in a deliverable if they remain in the project directory,
so it is best to remove them when you are about to reconvert an entire
book.
§35.4.1 Specifying when to delete old files from the project directory
§35.4.2 Specifying which files to delete from the project directory
§C.5 Working with reference files for HTML or XML