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Technical Information

1. Caveat

CBML is undergoing active development, and the technical documentation and files referenced in this page are undergoing regular revision, as a consequence of ongoing work within the CBML Project and in response to public comment and criticism. Please be aware of this fact and check for current versions before using or referencing these files and documentation. Version numbers and dates may be found in individual files and documents.

2. Introduction

This document contains links to CBML-related DTD files and documentation. CBML is a modification of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines. Modifications have been implemented using the mechanisms and recommendations found in Chapter 24: Modifying and Customizing the TEI DTD of the TEI Guidelines.

CBML requires that you use the TEI DTD files along with additional CBML extension files. This is the preferred and standard method. CBML may also be invoked using a single, flat DTD file that combines declarations found in the separate TEI and CBML files. This second method is simpler, but has some disadvantages, discussed below.

3. DTD Files

3.1. TEI DTD Files

The TEI DTD files are available at the TEI Web site.

3.2. CBML Driver and Extension Files

The cbml.dtd file is a "driver" file that invokes the TEI DTDs and the CBML extension files. Users should reference this file by its PUBLIC and SYSTEM identifiers in the DOCTYPE declaration of CBML documents. For example:



<!DOCTYPE cbml PUBLIC "-//CBML Project//CBML Main Driver File//EN" "cbml.dtd">

The .ent and .dtd extension files contain the CBML modifications to the TEI P4 DTD. They are invoked by the CBML Main Driver File (cbml.dtd) according the instructions in "Chapter 24 "Modifying and Customizing the TEI DTD" of the TEI Guidelines.

CBML DTD Files

3.3. CBML Flat-file DTD

This file is a single, flat-file version of the CBML dtd. It was generated from the original TEI DTD files and the CBML driver (cbml.dtd) and extension files (cbml.extensions.ent and cbml.extensions.dtd) using the carthage DTD processing software (available at http://www.tei-c.org/Software/carthage/). This flat-file DTD is provided as a convenience to CBML users; it allows users to work with one DTD file, without having to download the multiple CBML and TEI files listed above. The disadvantages of using this flat file DTD are:

The flat-file DTD does not include the self-documenting information about TEI invocation and modifications contained in the individual CBML driver and extension files.
Document instances that invoke the flat file DTD rather than the individual driver and extension files will not conform to the TEI Interchange Format described in Chapter 28: Conformance of the TEI Guidelines (P4 2002).

It may be invoked in instance documents with the following DOCTYPE declaration:


 <!DOCTYPE cbml PUBLIC "-//CBML Project//DTD CBML Flat DTD File//EN" "cbml-flat.dtd">

CBML Flat-File DTD

cbml-flat.dtd

4. Tag Set Documentation

The CBML Tag Set Documentation is preliminary and in draft form, but we hope it will be useful for those adventurous souls experimenting with CBML at this early stage in its development.

Date: (revised 05/03/2004) Author: John A. Walsh (revised jawalsh).