Activity Report 7, XML Project

2003-10-13
XML Project

by Yushi KOMACHI



1. Activities of the XML Project

The activities of the XML Project have been reported to ITSIG in

The last Report 6 showed the discussions in XML Project meeting (2002-05-16, Geneva) and JTC1/SC34 Meeting (2002-05-18/22, Barcelona) and the DTR text of ISO/IEC TR 9573-11 2nd edition including XML DTD for ISO standards documents.

2. DTR Ballot for ISO/IEC TR 9573-11 2nd edition

The ballot was terminated in Nov. 2002 and the DTR was approved (see JTC1 N6964). In the JTC1/SC34 plenary in Dec. 2002, SC34 accepted SC34 N366 as the disposition of comments on the DTR and instructed the editor to create the final text and forward it to the Secretariat for publication.

The editor submitted, in March 2003, the TR text including the disposition. After the submission the text was editorially modified according to the discussion with ISO/CS. The latest text has the following structure:

Foreword
Introduction
1. Scope
2. References
3. Approach to the harmonized set of ISO DTDs
4. Architecture of Standards
5. Element types description for base DTD
6. Profile
7. Master entity dictionary
8. Derivation of DTDs from the base DTD
9. Authoring DTDs
10. All public entities
11. XML DTD
 
Annex A Example of terminology in SGML (informative)
Annex B Example of terminology presentation (informative)
Annex C SGML DTDs (informative)
Annex D XML DTD Modules (informative)
Annex E Schema module by RELAX NG (ISO/IEC 19757-2) (informative)
Annex F XSLT specification for translation to HTML (informative)
Annex G XSL specification for rendering an XML instance (informative)
Annex H DSSSL (ISO/IEC 10179) specification for rendering an SGML instance (informative)
Annex I Rendering examples and processing tools (informative)

3. Features of ISO/IEC TR 9573-11 2nd edition

ISO/IEC TR 9573-11 2nd edition has been approved in the normal procedure of ISO/IEC JTC1 rule. The XML and SGML DTDs defined in the TR, therefore, can be considered as standard DTDs for describing and distributing ISO standards documents.

In addition the TR 9573-11 includes style specifications for all the elements defined by the DTD. The styles are based on the ISO/IEC Directives and the style specifications are described by DSSSL (ISO/IEC 10179) and XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language 1.0). Using the style specifications, the XML documents (and SGML documents) based on the DTD can easily be rendered for printing, displaying, or creating PDF files by a DSSSL or XSL processor.

The XSLT specification in the TR provides a conversion to HTML from XML to make it possible to preview XML texts of standards by ordinary HTML browsers.

In the old days of TR 9573-11 1st edition, SGML texts of standards were mainly dealt with in the ISO office, where a specific formatter had only to work on a particular style specification. Today, however, XML texts of standards can be created by editors, interchanged within drafting groups, forwarded to secretariat and distributed to users of the standards. In such distributed environments, style formatting is required by all the people involved and the rendered styles should be preserved in document distribution. Here the standardized style specifications are essential.

4. ITSIG/XML Project Adhoc

The ISO/CS is starting to face the problem that some editors forward their texts in XML formats with their own DTDs. Responding to the requirement of CS, the editor of TR 9573-11 and some implementers of DSSSL/XSL processor met in ISO/CS office in April 2003 for discussing XML authoring and distribution of standards documents.

The minutes of the meeting are attached.

5. Promotion of ISO/IEC TR 9573-11

An implementer of XML/SGML formatting tools has submitted his presentation paper to the XML Conference and Exposition 2003 of IDEAlliance, to be held in Philadelphia, PA, US, Dec. 2003. This presentation will demonstrate the actual formatting of standards documents in accordance with the DTD and style specification of TR 9573-11 2nd edition.


Attachment

Minutes of ISO ITSIG/XML Project Adhoc: XML Processing for ISO Documents


Date/Time: 2003-04-30, 14:00 through 16:30

Location: ISO Central Office, Geneva

Attendee:
Pasi Rinta-Filppula  ISO (Director Information Processing Services)
Joanna GoodwinISO (Assistant Director, Production Management Standards Department)
Alexander SamarinISO (IT Coordinator Electronic Publishing)
Y. KomachiPanasonic Communications (Editor of TR 9573-11 2nd ed.)
Prof. N. MitsudaWakayama University
Takashige NoguchiNEXTSOLUTION
Masayuki NaitoJapanese Standard Association

1. Activity Reports of ISO ITSIG/XML Project and Overview of TR 9573-11 2nd edition (by Y. Komachi)

2. Demonstration of an Authoring Tool (an XML Editor installed with 9573-11 DTD and DSSSL Processor) (by T. Noguchi)

3. Demonstration of other Tools (XML Editors and XSL Processors) (by Prof. N. Mitsuda)

4. Discussions and Conclusion

Attendee concluded that:

(1) XML is desirable in ISO environment in addition to the existing formats of SGML, PDF, HTML and MS-Word.

(2) The DTD defined in TR 9573-11 2nd edition is an ISO approved DTD, and can be employed for authoring as well as interchange using the style specifications included in the 9573-11. The style specifications are based on ISO/IEC Directives.

However, J. Goodwin pointed out that the English version of the Directives had been prepared using the IEC template, and thus employs IEC style rules rather than those of ISO (the French version of the Directives was prepared using the ISO template). J. Goodwin pointed out that changes for conformity with ISO style will be necessary; she will communicate these to Y. Komachi; Y. Komachi agreed that this would be acceptable.

(3) XML tools with rendering functionality are available. Some tools could become ISO reference softwares. This issue will be discussed further at the next meeting.

(4) ISO CO wishes the satisfaction of the following requirements for tools;

Book function was pointed out as a useful feature.

(5) The following promotions are expected;

(6) The Next Meeting was proposed to be held in September 2003. It will be confirmed with ITSIG Secretariat.