Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml Subject: Re: SGML question Message-ID: Date: 11 Sep 90 21:21:17 GMT References: <45617@cornell.UUCP> <589@helios.prosys.se> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Organization: The World Lines: 33 In-Reply-To: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu's message of 11 Sep 90 19:05:28 GMT From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) >I can't imagine anyone putting byte offsets into the file as cross >references; perhaps they are (page no, line no) offsets, but that >would be problematic for electronic text. Better would be some sort >of unambigous reference to where the reference is (however you would >say "paragraph 3 of the 'Publishing' reference in the Macropedia"). Actually, it's less unimaginable than you might think. Remember that texts are a lot less changeable than other types of documents you might be accustomed to. I doubt anyone is editing the bible tho (and if they do something like that then they better make a *copy* and call it something else!) Better would probably be to insert unique-reference tags into the text and then compile a look-aside table of byte offsets for quick reference which can be rebuilt easily if needed. Meaning, you'd insert things like this: into the text (the number just being an increasing integer to ensure uniqueness) and then compile a table (with a program) that might have entries like: ref as appears in text filename byte-offset fnords foo.txt.1 2366 Something like that. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD