Deciding on an XML attribute versus an element can be difficult.Xobian attributes fall into two groups:1. Those with limited choice values that are not expected to change, and:2. Those with freetext values that would require an external program to present more extensive choices and/or validate values. Based on a configuration file, values of the 'language' attribute could be restricted to a particular subset, e.g. those from the Name of a Language whose Entry has a 'class' attribute value of individual. Attributes are potentially useful for search limits, permitting conditional display, and may aid indexing refinement. This partial alphabetic listing supplements discussion in the context of each Principal Element.
| 'calendar' | Used on Entry/Variant of Time to indicate BC, or a calendar other than the default Gregorian one. The values represent the Code (Entry Substitute) of a Work authority for each calendar. They augment the international time standard to permit grouping of indexing entries by calendar. Cf. the Time section for details. |
| 'class' | Represents a broad category of Entry, often individual, collective, or referential, but varies by Principal Element.See each section for allowable values.Also used on Notation instead of 'type' to avoid confusion with Type element. Precise definitions are needed. |
| 'degree' | Used on a Relationship to indicate its relative strength, usually primary or secondary, but for conceptual ones, also broad and tertiary. See Relationships for further explanation. |
| 'id' | Used under Qualifiers on a Principal Element as qualifier or under Relationships on the Principal Element as the target of a Relationship to reference a related Record. It should match the related Record's ID value.The intent is to support tight authority control and propagation of changes, although it is optional to permit blind references (i.e. no target authority Record). Cf. 'xlink:href' below for replacing an 'id' during export. |
| 'language' | Optional; used on Entry (including those in Relationships), Variant, Record (for the language of cataloging) and/or Notation (and perhaps others) to indicate the language of a value. The 'transliteration' attribute depends upon the presence of a 'language' attribute. |
| 'nonfiling' | Used to record initial strings to be excluded from indexing.It may appear on any Entry Name (Name, NameSegment, Title, TitleSegment), including cases where these are used as a Qualifier, e.g. (The Hague, Netherlands), cf. Entry Name and Qualifiers under Generic Elements above.It also occurs on Modifier in Relationships to ignore enumerative labels, e.g. "v.". We see no reason to limit this feature to titles.The attribute must include any spaces to be maintained since some, such as L' abut the related value. See Description under Generic Elements for treatment of non-initial characters to be ignored in filing. |
Being example:
<Entry class="individual">
<Name nonfiling="The ">Rock</Name>
<Qualifiers>
<Concept id="24"substitute="Singular">Wrestler</Concept>
</Qualifiers>
</Entry>
Place example:
<Entry class="jurisdictional">
<Name nonfiling="Den ">Haag</Name>
</Entry>
Work example: The Short title: a subtitle. Part 3, Section title.
<Entry
<TitleSegment nonfiling="The ">Short title</Title>
<TitleSegment type="subtitle" nonfiling="a ">subtitle</Title>
<Qualifiers>
<String nonfiling="Part ">3</String>
</Qualifiers>
<TitleSegment type="section">Section title</Title>
</Entry>
| 'role' | Used on "substantive" Principal Elements (Place/Being/Object/Work) to indicate the role(s) served by the record.Values: authority, instance, or authority/instance. Cf. Qualifiers above for treatment of instances that differ from an authority only due to a qualifier. |
| 'scheme' | Indicates the authoritative work containing the term used.Code (an entry substitute) for the Entry of a Work is used to control the value of another Entry or Variant, typically a Concept. |
| 'set' | Identifies the category for a set of values which may be included as Type. The value should correspond to an authority Record's Entry used in a categorical relationship.See Type above for details. |
| 'substitute' | Indicates which Substitute Entry (Abbrev/Citation/Code/Singular) is used as a part of the Qualifiers element of another Entry or in a Relationship.Its absence means the Entry is used.This provides flexibility in referencing and display, yet retains unity. Substitute Entries control single optional values referenced by the 'substitute' attribute of Type or a Principal Element used as a Qualifier.The 'scheme' attribute uses Code by default. This is in contrast to Variant, where multiple Varia can be recorded, but not referenced formally due to their repeatability. Both are in effect intra-record equivalencies. |
| 'transliteration' | Optionally used on Entry (including entries in Relationships) or Variant to indicate the transliteration scheme used.The 'transliteration' attribute depends upon the presence of a 'language' attribute. Validation of a particular value would be based on its occurrence as the value of Code (an entry substitute) for a Work representing the transliteration scheme, and its having a categorical relationship to the Concept Transliteration Schemes. |
| 'type' | Indicates membership as one of a limited group of prescribed choices for various elements. It applies to each Principal Element, except Language. See those sections for values chosen initially.See Title and TitleSegment for its use in identifying generic titles and type of title segment. See Description above for its use with Notation. The Entry for Event and Work may have a 'type' of generic. See also 'class' for Entry. |
| 'xlink:href' | The XLink namespace with its 'href' attribute is used to identify "blind" references, i.e. pointing to a Record in another catalog using XOBIS.Additionally, an ID is converted to an 'xlink:href' on export to allow referencing the original Record from a remote system. This raises the possibility of automatically pulling an imported Record's related authority Records during import. This would be an implementational issue. Cf. 'id' above for intra-catalog Record linking. |