[osis-users] OSIS cross-reference questions

Wed Nov 14 08:22:12 MST 2012

On Nov 14, 2012, at 8:54 AM, Markku Pihlaja <markku.pihlaja at sempre.fi> wrote:

> I'll also need to return to some questions that already got answered ages ago - halfway to meet my final needs, as it now turned out.
> 
> 
> 2012/4/26 David Troidl <DavidTroidl at aol.com>
>> 1)
>> How should I encode cross-references to non-contiguous verse ranges? For example, I have this reference (in our standard notation): Matt. 27:17,22. This is formally just one reference to verses 17 and 22, not two separate references. OSIS requires that "a single osisRef cannot identify a discontiguous range of a work". So how should this be done? Making one note that contains two references might be a step towards what I want, but there would still be two separate references.
> Here is the way to encode discontiguous references:
> <note type="crossReference"><reference osisRef="Matt.27.17">Matt. 27:17</reference>, <reference osisRef="Matt.27.22">22</reference></note>
> 
> So, when I have a list of separate references, some of which are non-contiguous ones such as above, should I create a nested note to contain the different notes?
> 
> For example, if I have the following three references for one verse:
> Matt. 27:17,22 ; 2. Sam. 7:16; Matt. 9:27
> 
> should that be coded as:
> 
> <note type="crossreference">
>         <note type="crossreference">
>                 <reference osisRef="Matt.27.17">Matt. 27:17</reference>, 
>                 <reference osisRef="Matt.27.22">22</reference>
>         </note>;
>         <note type="crossreference">
>                 <reference osisRef="2Sam.7.16">2. Sam. 7:16</reference>
>         </note>;
>         <note type="crossreference">
>                 <reference osisRef="Matt.9.27">Matt. 9:27</reference>
>         </note>
> </note>

No. Don't nest.
You can also use references such as <reference osisRef="Matt.27.17 Matt.27.22 2Sam.7.16 Matt.9.27">Matt 27:17,22; 2 Sam 7:16; Matt 9:27</reference>.
Note that some systems (e.g. SWORD Project) cannot handle this. And having 4 refs is better.

> 
> Putting all the <reference>'s within just one <note> container would to me mean one reference to extremely non-contiguous verses. And if I omit the outer <note> tags, then the semicolon separators between the different notes would fall outside any note and be rendered even when notes are hidden.
> 
> If that suggestion was right, what should we do in simpler cases where there is a group of contiguous references?Should I still enclose them in a second level of <note>'s for consistency, or would it be ok to use only one level like this (assuming here that there is no 27:22 in the first reference):
> 
> <note type="crossreference">
>         <reference osisRef="Matt.27.17">Matt. 27:17</reference>;
>         <reference osisRef="2Sam.7.16">2. Sam. 7:16</reference>;
>         <reference osisRef="Matt.9.27">Matt. 9:27</reference>
> </note>

Just one level. Just like this.

> 
> 
>> 3)
>> Our cross-references are currently listed on a verse-by-verse basis in a separate file. Each verse might have a number of references, most of them separated by a semi-colon. However, in some cases the separator is the vertical line character, | (or the pipe sign). This indicates a fine grained division of the source verse. That's *source*, not target. For example,
>>    Luuk. 2:4-7 ¦ Dan. 1:20
>> would say that the beginning of the referring verse refers to Luke 2:4-7, and the end to Daniel 1:20. There can be up to 4 divisions like this in one verse. However, there is no automatic way of determining what the exact division of the source verse is. In fact, in some cases even I can't read the verse and tell the division without reading the referenced verses first.
>> 
>> This means that in any case I'll probably need to leave the OSIS coding vague in this respect. My question here: is there a way to somehow indicate the existence of this division within the tags, or is the only way to continue marking it like it was done until now, like this:
>> <reference section1a.... />; <reference section1b.... /> | <reference section2.... /> |  <reference section3a.... />; <reference section3b.... />
>> 
>> Could that be done by using osisID's like
>> Matt.1.1!crossReference.section1.a
>> Matt.1.1!crossReference.section1.b etc.
>> or is there a better way?
> I'm not exactly clear what you are asking here.  If you want to mark up the notes, without changing the markup of the Bible text, you could use word numbers within the verse, to indicate where the note applies.
> 
> And I'm not quite clear if I got your point :).
> Let me give you a quite precise example.
> 
> This is Acts 3:13:
> "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go."
> 
> For that verse, we have three different references which are marked like this:
> Exod. 3:6 |  Isa. 52:13 | Luke 23:16
> The | separators (as opposed to semicolons that are normally used as separators in reference lists) indicate that the Exodus reference is related to the beginning of our verse, the Isaiah reference to the middle part and the Luke reference to the end.
> 
> As you can see, even though the reference list applies that there are three sections in the verse, there is no automatic way of determining what exactly are "the beginning", "the middle" and "the end", or sections 1, 2 and 3 of that verse. In some cases it is even unclear after you've carefully read the verse and the references and tried to use common sense based on the contents to manually figure out what those sections are. So the aim of placing the reference notes separately in the text exactly where they should appear is rather impossible.
> 
> My question is: is there a way of indicating in a reference itself that the source of the reference is some sub-part of the verse? In this way, applications might be able to e.g. show an extra tag "from middle of verse" or something like that. Could we use subdivided osisID's for this purpose, like this:
> 
> <note type="cross-reference">
>                 <reference osisID="Acts.3.13!crossReference.1" osisRef="Exod.3.6">Exod. 3:6</reference> |
>                 <reference osisID="Acts.3.13.crossreference.2" osisRef="Isa.52.13">Isa. 52:13</reference> |
>                 <reference osisID="Acts.3.13.crossreference.3" osisRef="Luke.23.16">Luke 23:16</reference>
> </note>
> 
> and with even further fine-tuning if there were for example two references before the first "|":
> osisID="Acts.3.13!crossReference.1.a" and osisID="Acts.3.13!crossReference.1.b" ?

From memory, there is a grain part of the osisID/osisRef that can be used to indicate the code points (think characters) that comprise the sub-part. It is used like SUBSTR in many programming languages.

However, If you are going to go to that much trouble then I'd suggest that you split the note into various parts and put them into the proper locations in the file.

The basic idea of the <note> element is that it appears in the source at the position that you want the marker(s). If you want one marker, then you have one note. If you want 3 then you have 3.

Hope this helps,
	DM

> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for your patience, these are rather hard to explain exactly and understandably but in short :).
> 
> Markku
> 
> _______________________________________________
> osis-users mailing list
> osis-users at crosswire.org
> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/osis-users

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/osis-users/attachments/20121114/11c3d395/attachment.html>