A Typical Index File
The FTP archive
here at Indiana is a typical basic technical report index. The index
file looks something like this:
<![CDATA[
TR 340 Gregory J. E. Rawlins. The new publishing: Technology's impact
on the publishing industry over the next decade. (Nov. 1991).
68pgs
TR 346 J. Lawall & D. P. Friedman. Toward leakage containment. (Feb.
1992). 11pgs
TR 347 Latha S. Colby. An algebra for list-oriented applications.
(Feb. 1992). 84pgs
]]>
This file can be considered as a bunch of records, each of which is
separated by some standard method (a blank line, used here, is most
common; other delimiters include a line which does not begin with
whitespace or a line beginning with two hyphens.)
The directory contains
filenames of the form:
<![CDATA[
TR340.dvi.Z TR340.ps.Z TR346.ps.Z TR347.ps.Z
]]>
Since the filename extensions are highly standardized, they're easily
removed. Since the base filenames are are contained (with the
standard addition of a space, a minor hassle) within the records of
the index file, it's reasonably easy to match files with index
records. The records are folded into a normalized form with things
like whitespace squeezed out, and anchors are created as appropriate.
It is important to note that the program building the index
understands nothing about the index file except that it consists of
records delimited by blank lines and that it contains some strings
which happen to be the same as some of the filenames in that
directory.
The result of the index-builder are some entries that look like this:
- Indiana University CS TR340.dvi.Z(95K) TR340.ps.Z(167K)
- TR 340 Gregory J. E. Rawlins. The new publishing: Technology's impact on the publishing industry over the next decade. (Nov. 1991). 68pgs
- Indiana University CS TR346.ps.Z(47K)
- TR 346 J. Lawall & D. P. Friedman. Toward leakage containment. (Feb. 1992). 11pgs
- Indiana University CS TR347.ps.Z(305K)
- TR 347 Latha S. Colby. An algebra for list-oriented applications. (Feb. 1992). 84pgs
This is a typical example of an archive, and it is perfectly adequate.
However, it's not terribly impressive, and it won't allow for more
sophisticated features we discussed earlier.
Now, let's go on to an example
of bib format...
Marc V