xml:id

The xml:id attribute provides a unique identifier for the element bearing the attribute. The identifier must be unique in the whole XML document. If there is another element in the XML document bearing the same identifier as a value for this attribute, a validating XML parser will signal a syntax error. Conforming to the World Wide Web Consortium’s XML Recommendations, the attribute value must be a legal name, which means that it must start with a letter or the underscore character and contain no characters other than letters, digits, hyphens, underscores, full stops, and certain combining and extension characters. The use of the colon in a unique identifier is forbidden as it has the specific purpose of indicating namespace prefixes in XML.

n

The n attribute also provides an identifier for an element, but its value doesn’t need to be a legal XML name. This means that they don’t have to be unique inside the XML document and they may start with and contain any character. Typically n is used to number or label elements. All n values in the following examples are legal:

For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.

It was a sunny day in late September 1960 bang on noontime and Dr Burt was looking forward to a stroll in the park instead.

He hoped his fellow members of the Royal Academy weren't even going to notice his absence.

Providing informal labels for elements in the n attribute.

Although by no means mandatory, it often makes sense to enrich the structural units of a document (e.g., lines in a poem) with some sort of identification (in xml:id) or reference mechanism (in n). Of course, when dealing with complex and/or long documents, this labelling could become a rather demanding task in itself. Fortunately, this job can be done automatically by an XML processor, which can identify the sequential position of one element within another in an XML document without any additional tagging. Instead of manually providing mechanical references for a long poem or collection of poems, you could as well instruct an XML processor to either enrich the TEI encoding and add xml:id or n attributes with appropriate values, or to automatically deduct such reference systems from your markup and present them while rendering the document (e.g., in an HTML version of a poem).

See section 3.10.2 Creating New Reference Systems of the TEI Guidelines for guidance on creating sensible reference systems for text structures.

xml:lang

The language of the content of a given element may be documented as the value of an xml:lang attribute. If it is not specified, the value is inherited from that of the immediately enclosing element. Therefore, it is simplest to specify the base language of a text on the TEI element and override that with xml:lang attributes only for those elements with a different language.

'Plenty of options', he thought, sat on a bench and opened the book he had taken from the Whoopledywhaaian National Library. It was titled 'While thou art here', by Sir Edmund Peckwood. While reading the first sentence, his placid expression turned to a certain je ne sais quoi: 'For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.'

Specifying the language of the content of an element with the xml:lang attribute.

The values for the xml:lang attribute must be constructed in a uniform way as explained in section vi.1. Language identification of the TEI Guidelines.

xml:base

Many TEI attributes take a URI reference as their value. Those can be either absolute (starting with the protocol, such as http:, ftp:, ...) or relative (either starting with a local file name, such as names.xml, and/or a fragment identifier, such as #EV). The xml:base attribute can be used to set a context for all relative URLs appearing within the element on which the xml:base attribute is specified. For example:

'Plenty of options', he thought, sat on a bench and opened the book he had taken from the Whoopledywhaaian National LibraryThe National Library of Whoopledywhaa was founded in 1886 with the acquisition of the library of the late King Anthony.. It was titled 'While thou art here', by Sir Edmund PeckwoodThe manuscript reads 'Petwood'.. While reading the first sentence, his placid expression turned to a certain je ne sais quoi: 'For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.'

Providing a context for the resolution of relative URIs with the xml:base attribute.

In this example, the relative URI names.xml#EV will be resolved to a subfolder named xml of the folder containing the electronic text containing that reference. Hence, the URI reference will be evaluated as ../xml/names.xml#EV.

xml:space

This global attribute provides a mechanism for indicating to systems processing an XML file how they should treat white space. It has two possible values: default (white space will most probably be normalised during processing) and preserve (white space should be preserved as is during processing).

white space white space Specifying how white space should be handled during processing with xml:space.

In this example, the xml:space on the sic element specifies that the (unusual) spacing in the original form should be preserved when this document is being processed.

Notice, how the xml:space attribute is rarely used in TEI documents because such layout features are generally expressed more confidently, and descriptively, with TEI elements such as lb or space, or using the renditional attributes described next.

rend

The rend attribute is used to document information about the physical appearance of the text in the source. In the following example, it is used to indicate that the title, the French phrase, and the name of the Royal Academy are printed in italics:

'Plenty of options', he thought, sat on a bench and opened the book he had taken from the Whoopledywhaaian National Library. It was titled , by Sir Edmund Peckwood. While reading the first sentence, his placid expression turned to a certain je ne sais quoi: 'For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.'

Indicating specific renditional features in the source text with rend.

The value for rend can take the form of a white space separated list of idiosyncratic keywords, which an XML processor can act upon when rendering the document. This means that multiple renditional features can be enumerated with rend.

style

The style attribute can also be used to document information about the physical appearance of the text in the source. Contrary to rend, style must express this information in some formal style definition language. This will most often be CSS, although others are possible as well. The name of that formal style definition language can be given in the encodingDesc section of the header, in a styleDefDecl element:

'Plenty of options', he thought, sat on a bench and opened the book he had taken from the Whoopledywhaaian National Library. It was titled , by Sir Edmund Peckwood. While reading the first sentence, his placid expression turned to a certain je ne sais quoi: 'For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.'

Indicating specific renditional features in the source text with rend.

rendition

Whereas the rend and style attributes documents the appearance of text locally, i.e., attached to an element, the rendition attribute points to a description of the rendering or appearance in the header (teiHeader), more specifically inside a tagsDecl inside the encodingDesc section. This is done in free text or using a formal language inside a rendition element. This way, only one description of the rendering must be given, which can be referred to with rendition attributes on elements in the text. The advantage of this system becomes clear when both rendition and rend are used for occurrences of a given element. While the former refers to an overall description of the appearance of that element in the source, the latter documents the local deviation from that generally imposed rendition.

In the following example, we see a description of the overall rendering of hi elements in a document, in the tagsDecl element inside the encodingDesc section of teiHeader. The gi attribute of tagUsage names the elements for which the rendition described in rendition is documented. The formal namespace in which the tags described in tagUsage are defined, must be specified in the name attribute of a surrounding namespace element. The value of the rendition attribute of tagUsage refers to rendition by way of the latter’s xml:id attribute. This way, all hi elements inside text have the style, defined as italic, as their default rendition. In the following example, the third occurrence of the hi element in the text documents a deviant rendition, by means of the rend attribute.

font-style:italic;

'Plenty of options', he thought, sat on a bench and opened the book he had taken from the Whoopledywhaaian National Library. It was titled While thou art here, by Sir Edmund Peckwood. While reading the first sentence, his placid expression turned to a certain je ne sais quoi: 'For the first time in twenty-five years, Dr Burt Diddledygook decided not to turn up to the annual meeting of the Royal Academy of Whoopledywhaa.'

Referring to central definitions of rendition styles with rendition.

cert

The cert attribute provides a method of indicating the encoder’s certainty concerning an intervention or interpretation represented by the markup. This can be done with an informal classification, such as high, medium, or low, or more formal systems, such as a probability scale between 1 and 0.

Pekwood Petwood Peckwood Expressing certainty for an editorial interpretation with resp.

In this example, two alternatives are presented for the transcription of the original form, with an indication of the certainty in their respective cert attributes.

resp

The resp attribute is used to indicate the person or agency considered responsible for some aspects of the information encoded by an element. This responsible party should be identified formally in an element with an xml:id attribute, either in the same document, or elsewhere.

Pekwood Petwood Peckwood Identifying the person responsible for a correction with resp.

source

The source attribute is used to indicate the source of an element and its content, for example by pointing to a bibliograhpic citation.

Plenty ​of ​options,​ ​he ​thought,​ ​sat ​on ​a ​bench ​and ​opened ​the ​book ​he ​had ​taken ​from ​the ​Whoopledywhaaian ​National ​Library.​ ​It ​was ​titled ​'​While ​thou ​art ​here'​,​ ​by ​Sir ​Edmund ​Peckwood.​ ​While ​reading ​the ​first ​sentence,​ ​his ​placid ​expression ​turned ​to ​a ​certain ​je ​ne ​sais ​quoi:​ ​For ​the ​first ​time ​in ​twenty-​five ​years,​ ​Dr ​Burt ​Diddledygook ​decided ​not ​to ​turn ​up ​to ​the ​annual ​meeting ​of ​the ​Royal ​Academy ​of ​Whoopledywhaa.​

Peckwood, Edmund. 1935. . ​Whoopledywhaa: ​Whoopledywhaaian Press.

Formally indicating the source for a quotation with source.