My new usfm2osis.py script is progressing quite nicely. I've got it
generating valid OSIS from one Bible that uses a very minimal set of
USFM elements. At the moment, I'm working to make it process all tags
present within the USFM versions of the WEB and RV, and this has raised
an issue.
I've been working primarily with the USFM reference from UBS ICAP,
treating it as a sort of specification. My question is: should this new
utility accept USFM that does not conform to the reference at UBS ICAP?
Should it accept & interpret USFM tags that are not present in the
reference?
One specific example is that the WEB uses \fqa*, which is obviously
intended as an end-tag version of \fqa (used to mark alternate
translations). But the USFM reference does not identify this as a valid
end-tag, by my reading.
So... should we...
a) Make the new utility accept non-conformant USFM (from the perspective
of the USFM reference). I'm leery of this, since one of my reasons for
writing the new utility was to keep it pristinely spec-conformant and I
have a feeling we might start incorporating tags and syntax that are
less obviously interpretable than \fqa*.
b) Write a separate utility to convert common and interpretable
non-conformant tags/syntax to conformant markup.
c) Add a command-line switch to usfm2osis.py so that it performs a
pre-processing step of making non-conformant tags/syntax into conformant
markup. (This would be the same as option b, but would place everything
in a single utility.)
d) Punt on the issue, and let those performing conversion deal with
non-conformant markup on a case by case basis.
--Chris
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