XML/XSLT
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a
simple dialect (or subset) of the Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML). XML
enables generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the
Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. It has been designed
for ease of implementation, and for interoperability
with both SGML and HTML.
According to a press release from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),
"XML is primarily intended to meet the requirements of large-scale Web
content providers for industry-specific markup, vendor-neutral data
exchange, media-independent publishing, one-on-one marketing, workflow
management in collaborative authoring environments, and the processing
of Web documents by intelligent clients. It is also expected to find
use in certain metadata applications. XML is fully internationalized
for both European and Asian languages, with all conforming processors
required to support the Unicode character set in both its UTF-8 and
UTF-16 encodings. The language is designed for the quickest possible
client-side processing consistent with its primary purpose as an
electronic publishing and data interchange format."
Valid XML documents are designed to be valid SGML documents, but XML
documents have additional restrictions.
ICPSR encourages the markup of technical documentation according to
the DDI specification and is developing a depository for these
files. The goal is to promote the sharing of marked-up codebooks and
to reduce duplication of effort.
To deposit codebooks, please send e-mail to ddi@icpsr.umich.edu for
instructions on how to proceed.
University of Guelph Stylesheets
http://tdr.uoguelph.ca/DATA/WKSHPS/IASSIST2002/
This directory contains several stylesheets created at the University of Guelph Data Resource Centre for use with DDI files. Also on the directory is a PowerPoint presentation (ddi2002) describing DDI activities at the University of Guelph.
ICPSR Stylesheets
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/codebook2-0.xsl
The ICPSR codebook stylesheet (for the Version 2.0 DTD) was created to enable a simple one-page presentation of the codebook in xml (stripped clean of site-specific navigation for ease of printing). It includes minor navigational aids, enabling users to selectively view sections of the codebook, and to move through lists of variables and variable groups.
