Element and Attribute Naming Rules

• CASE — All XML names originating in this Tag Set or in the Suite are to be in lower case. Such names include element names, attribute names, parameter entity names, notation names, and IDs. The casing and interior punctuation of element-type names, attribute names, and parameter entity names inherited from PUBLIC models (such as the NISO JATS XHTML-inspired table model or the MathML Tag Set, or the OASIS XML Exchange (CALS) table model) are unchanged. That means that they occur in the case in which they were found in the original module, and so may be in mixed case or upper case (e.g., %Flow.mix;).
• MULTI-WORD NAMES — When two or more words are concatenated into an element name, attribute name, or parameter entity name, a hyphen is placed between the words, for example, <verse-group>, <index-entry>, <word-count>.
• WORD STANDARDIZATION — Abbreviations may be used when words are used in combination. When a word stands alone as a name, it is not abbreviated. Thus, the element <conference> uses the full word “conference”, but the conference combinations (such as <conf-theme> and <conf-num>) use the abbreviation “conf”. Abbreviations are standardized so that, for example, “figure” is always used as “fig” (as in the element <fig-group>) and group is not abbreviated (as in the elements <fig-group>, <kwd-group>, and <fn-group>).
• EMPHASIS — The typographic emphasis elements are spelled out in full, for example, <bold> (rather than “<b>”), <italic>, and <underline> instead of being differentiated using attribute values on an element such as <emphasis>. Superscript and subscript are not considered to be purely typographic, and each is a separate element: <sub> and <sup>.

The following table contains a growing list of abbreviations/names to be used in combined tag names (element type names), attribute names, and parameter entity names. (Words in the list below that are not abbreviated are displayed in italics.)

File Naming Conventions

This Tag Library describes the components for the BITS Tag Set. This Tag Set is described in a DTD, an XSD schema, and a RELAX NG schema. For the DTD, the base DTD module (delivered as the file BITS-book1.dtd) calls in all the other DTD fragment modules as external parameter entities. Each module specific to this Tag Set (therefore, not part of the Suite) takes the prefix “BITS-bookcustom-” The same prefix has been followed in the other two constraint languages/schemas.

Each DTD and DTD fragment module has been assigned a unique formal public identifier (fpi). File names are never referenced directly in the comments in the DTD; the file is referred to by the name of the external parameter entity, which names the fpi and a system name for the file. The external parameter entity has been set to the initial delivery filename.

The BITS Book DTD, the individual DTD-fragment modules of this Tag Set and the Suite, the XSD schema modules, and the RELAX NG schema modules have been given DOS/Windows 3-digit suffixes indicating their type:

All BITS (and NISO JATS) versions reflect the major version number in the file name. The BITS modules include a zero for the BITS Book Beta version 0.2. As an example, a module whose name would be list.ent is named for the version JATS-list1.ent (to indicate that it is part of the ANSI/NISO JATS 1.1d1 release). (Note: The parameter entity that references the file is still called &list.ent;, but it now references a file with the JATS- prefix and the version number embedded, namely JATS-list1.ent.)

The current plan is that future dot releases (0.3, 0.4, etc.) will not be reflected in the filename (not BITS-book0-3.dtd, JATS-list1-2.ent, etc.) but will remain named with a single digit (“0”) as BITS-book1.dtd), which will not change until the next major release (BITS-book1.dtd).