# citeproc-rb status

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [November 4, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341 "2007-11-04T13:26:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 16\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/1 "2007-11-04T13:26:52Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’m interested in using the citeproc-rb module mentioned here:

[http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Bibliographic\_Project’s\_Developer\_Page#Formating\_Engine](http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Bibliographic_Project's_Developer_Page#Formating_Engine)

and here:

[http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg\_id=a5a941250d1b046b30ca9ef3d8632d9e%40gmail.com](http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=a5a941250d1b046b30ca9ef3d8632d9e%40gmail.com)

My use case is exactly that mentioned in Bruce’s email, i.e. generating  
formatted citations via CSL in a Ruby on Rails application. This module  
looks a out-of-date, though it doesn’t look too difficult to bring in line  
with the (more recent?) CSL schema from citeproc-0.7.1. I’m willing to look  
at updating this, but I would appreciate some pointers if at all possible.  
For example the citeproc-0.7.1/styles/apa-en.csl differs from  
csl/styles/apa.csl quite markedly, and I’m not sure which represents the  
newer or more definitive CSL schema. And I’m not sure if more recent work  
has been underway on a Ruby port of citeproc… In any case, any suggestions  
would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 2:16pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/2 "2007-11-04T14:16:02Z")

</div>

Hi Liam,

> My use case is exactly that mentioned in Bruce’s email, i.e. generating  
> formatted citations via CSL in a Ruby on Rails application. This module  
> looks a out-of-date, though it doesn’t look too difficult to bring in line  
> with the (more recent?) CSL schema from citeproc-0.7.1. I’m willing to look  
> at updating this, but I would appreciate some pointers if at all possible.

Sure thing.

> For example the citeproc-0.7.1/styles/apa-en.csl differs from  
> csl/styles/apa.csl quite markedly, and I’m not sure which represents the  
> newer or more definitive CSL schema. And I’m not sure if more recent work  
> has been underway on a Ruby port of citeproc…

No, I’ve not touched it in awhile. But I imagine not much fundamental  
would change given its design. You’re just changing the CSL parsing  
stuff to create the objects, and then finishing all the work I hadn’t  
done 😉

The current schema and apa example is here:

[http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/csl/schema/branches/](http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/csl/schema/branches/)

We really need to merge them back with the trunk and update the rest  
of the styles.

So feel free to have a go at it and ask any questions as you go alone.  
I’d really love to have a nice Ruby library!

BTW, I’m not much of a hacker, but I did try to be pretty good about  
writing unit tests.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 2:31pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/3 "2007-11-04T14:31:18Z")

</div>

Oh, one other suggestion: I understand Ruby will finally be getting  
proper unicode support sometime soon-ish. It’d be good to be able to  
easily upgrade this library for that.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/4 "2007-11-04T15:14:04Z")

</div>

Hmm … looking again at csl.rb, perhaps it’d need some rework.

Right now, the classes are:

Style  
Definition  
Template  
Field

At a meta level, this isn’t quite wrong, but to make the link to CSL  
more clear, it’d probably be better to think in terms of something  
like:

Style  
Context  
Citation  
Bibliography  
Template  
Macro  
Field  
TextField  
NameField  
DateField

This is just brain-storming; not rigorously well-thought-out

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/5 "2007-11-05T00:13:54Z")

</div>

Thanks, I’ll have a more detailed look at this soon. I’m new to citeproc,  
but what I was thinking was:

1. Restructuring csl.rb along the lines you suggest (i.e. build a class  
model which reflects the latest csl.rnc)
2. Refactor citeproc.rb to parse CSL files and build the new model
3. Update the reference metadata classes (not sure if this is necessary, but  
in running some tests these don’t look like they carry all the attributes of  
the updated CSL model)
4. Optionally: provide some bridge between various likely input formats  
(BibTeX and DocBook?) and the internal metadata classes (something similar  
to the role the in-driver.xsl plays in citeproc proper)
5. Optionally: generate a citeproc-rb gem for simplified deployment
6. Update the test cases

This would be useful for the use cases I’m developing for internally. I’m  
trying to load up the csl schema to get a better understanding of this,  
after which I will probably have more questions… Any further suggestions  
would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/6 "2007-11-05T01:23:42Z")

</div>

> Thanks, I’ll have a more detailed look at this soon. I’m new to citeproc,  
> but what I was thinking was:
> 
> 1. Restructuring csl.rb along the lines you suggest (i.e. build a class  
> model which reflects the latest csl.rnc)
> 2. Refactor citeproc.rb to parse CSL files and build the new model
> 3. Update the reference metadata classes (not sure if this is necessary, but  
> in running some tests these don’t look like they carry all the attributes of  
> the updated CSL model)
> 4. Optionally: provide some bridge between various likely input formats  
> (BibTeX and DocBook?) and the internal metadata classes (something similar  
> to the role the in-driver.xsl plays in citeproc proper)
> 5. Optionally: generate a citeproc-rb gem for simplified deployment
> 6. Update the test cases

Sounds like a great plan, though you’d probably want to update the  
test cases a little earlier, right?

> This would be useful for the use cases I’m developing for internally. I’m  
> trying to load up the csl schema to get a better understanding of this,  
> after which I will probably have more questions… Any further suggestions  
> would be greatly appreciated.

Simon has the most experience implementing a full non-XSLT processor.  
You can always lok at his JS code over at the Zotero SVN if curious.

BTW, if you’re interested in keeping the code here and need SVN  
access, contact me off-list with your SF user name.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 5:20am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/7 "2007-11-06T05:20:32Z")

</div>

I’ve started work on a basic Ruby parser of the newer CSL format, and now  
have some further questions:

1. The original Ruby library has a group of classes in citeproc.rb which  
look like they correspond to what in the citeproc XSL version is called an  
’intermediate representation’: classes like Reference, ReferenceList and so  
on. Would this be correct? If so, is there a standard reference for this  
representation of references, in RelaxNG or some other format?
2. The CSL schema seems to have evolved considerably since the original Ruby  
library was developed for it. It seems like a parser would need to build a  
series of rules which are then applied by a formatting process, similar to  
the XSL version. begs the question as to whether the XSL version should  
perhaps have a Ruby wrapper instead, although I don’t know how mature the  
Ruby XSLT libraries are. Has anyone on this list experimented with this  
approach?
3. In line with how the XSL version work, I thought a Ruby version, if it  
went ahead, could include:

InputFilter (for MODS, DocBook and BibTeX) - converts to an internal  
reference model  
Parser - builds an internal representation of the CSL graph  
Formatter - applies CSL rules to the reference model  
OutputFilter (for XHTML and perhaps other formats) - outputs the format  
results

Ruby idioms make the filters and parsers reasonably straightforward to  
implement, but the Formatter probably would take some work - and this is  
where XSL makes the most sense. I’m happy to look at building a ‘pure’  
(non-XSL) Ruby version, but it is more work (as always) that I thought  
initially - and probably beyond the scope of my selfish requirements. Is  
there substantial justification for building a Ruby library, or would it be  
preferable to contribute some help in other ways?

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/8 "2007-11-06T12:36:22Z")

</div>

Liam Magee wrote:

> I’ve started work on a basic Ruby parser of the newer CSL format, and  
> now have some further questions:
> 
> 1. The original Ruby library has a group of classes in citeproc.rb which  
> look like they correspond to what in the citeproc XSL version is called  
> an ‘intermediate representation’: classes like Reference, ReferenceList  
> and so on. Would this be correct? If so, is there a standard reference  
> for this representation of references, in RelaxNG or some other format?

No.

> 1. The CSL schema seems to have evolved considerably since the original  
> Ruby library was developed for it. It seems like a parser would need to  
> build a series of rules which are then applied by a formatting process,  
> similar to the XSL version. begs the question as to whether the XSL  
> version should perhaps have a Ruby wrapper instead, although I don’t  
> know how mature the Ruby XSLT libraries are. Has anyone on this list  
> experimented with this approach?

I’ve thought it should indeed be possible to do some of the heavy  
lifting in Ruby (sorting/grouping, etc.), and then to perhaps pass some  
parameters into an XSLT process.

The problems with that are:

1. the current XSLT code is outdated, and is written in XSLT 2.0, so  
there would need to be work on that code

2. one is then stuck with using XML as the data representation.

3. another dependency (not pure Ruby)

> 1. In line with how the XSL version work, I thought a Ruby version, if  
> it went ahead, could include:
> 
> InputFilter (for MODS, DocBook and BibTeX) - converts to an internal  
> reference model  
> Parser - builds an internal representation of the CSL graph  
> Formatter - applies CSL rules to the reference model  
> OutputFilter (for XHTML and perhaps other formats) - outputs the format  
> results

Right.

> Ruby idioms make the filters and parsers reasonably straightforward to  
> implement, but the Formatter probably would take some work - and this is  
> where XSL makes the most sense.

Have you taken a look at how Simon implemented the equivalent in JS?

[https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/cite.js](https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/cite.js)

> I’m happy to look at building a ‘pure’  
> (non-XSL) Ruby version, but it is more work (as always) that I thought  
> initially - and probably beyond the scope of my selfish requirements. Is  
> there substantial justification for building a Ruby library, or would it  
> be preferable to contribute some help in other ways?

Well, up to you of course. See what you think about the above (probably  
particularly Simon’s code).

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/9 "2007-11-06T13:10:00Z")

</div>

Thanks for the response.

I’ve looked at Simon’s code. This is an amazing bit of work in Javascript.  
There are some difficulties with adapting this for a Ruby library: the CSL  
declarations look like they have been normalised in a relational database;  
and the outputs are hard-coded to specific HTML and RTF tags. But this would  
provide a very useful starting and reference point for a different  
implementation.

I’ll continue down the path of a XSL-less Ruby variant a little further, to  
the point of having a simplified CSL parser and formatter at least. What do  
you recommend as a basis for a citations model - I take it both Docbook and  
MODS supply a richer model than BibTeX?

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/10 "2007-11-06T13:14:59Z")

</div>

> I’ve looked at Simon’s code. This is an amazing bit of work in Javascript.  
> There are some difficulties with adapting this for a Ruby library: the CSL  
> declarations look like they have been normalised in a relational database;  
> and the outputs are hard-coded to specific HTML and RTF tags.

Right, that’s not how I was doing it when I was working on  
citeproc-rb. I prefer the idea of having methods like “to\_xhtml” and  
“to\_rtf”.

> But this would provide a very useful starting and reference point for a different  
> implementation.

Right, because he’s had to figure out all the tricky details that I  
know here a PITA in XSLT!

> I’ll continue down the path of a XSL-less Ruby variant a little further, to  
> the point of having a simplified CSL parser and formatter at least. What do  
> you recommend as a basis for a citations model - I take it both Docbook and  
> MODS supply a richer model than BibTeX?

You mean, you’re looking for good source data to work with? Or are you  
asking how to model the class in your code?

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/11 "2007-11-06T13:26:35Z")

</div>

> > I’ll continue down the path of a XSL-less Ruby variant a little further,  
> > to  
> > the point of having a simplified CSL parser and formatter at least. What  
> > do  
> > you recommend as a basis for a citations model - I take it both Docbook  
> > and  
> > MODS supply a richer model than BibTeX?
> 
> You mean, you’re looking for good source data to work with? Or are you  
> asking how to model the class in your code?

The latter. What I imagine is some reasonably complete generic citation Ruby  
object model which supports at least most of the data structures of DocBook,  
MODS and BibTeX citations. These could then be parsed into such a object  
model, which would then be traversed to generate a formatted output.  
However I’m not particularly familiar with the details of these (although I  
have done some work with DocBook and BibTeX).

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 2:27pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/12 "2007-11-06T14:27:30Z")

</div>

…

> > You mean, you’re looking for good source data to work with? Or are you  
> > asking how to model the class in your code?
> 
> The latter. What I imagine is some reasonably complete generic citation Ruby  
> object model which supports at least most of the data structures of DocBook,  
> MODS and BibTeX citations. These could then be parsed into such a object  
> model, which would then be traversed to generate a formatted output.

Right, that’s the way to do it.

> However I’m not particularly familiar with the details of these (although I  
> have done some work with DocBook and BibTeX).

I see two approaches on which to base it:

1. the CSL model (which is more output oriented)

2. the RDF ontology that some of us have been working on, and which  
has inspired a bit of the current class design.

http:bibliontology.com

We ought to be releasing a draft of that soon-ish, BTW.

Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. What’s your preference?

I’m I suppose at this point rather famously NOT a fan of BibTeX; it’s  
too limited for anything but the sciences.

MODS is much more flexible, but arguably too much so. I never thought  
miuch of teh DocBook model, and even when authoring my manuscripts in  
DocBook, I always bypassed its bib support.

Per above, the current version of the XSLT code uses a particular  
serialization of an RDF representation as its internal model.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/13 "2007-11-07T14:20:20Z")

</div>

> > However I’m not particularly familiar with the details of these  
> > (although I  
> > have done some work with DocBook and BibTeX).
> 
> I see two approaches on which to base it:
> 
> 1. the CSL model (which is more output oriented)
> 
> 2. the RDF ontology that some of us have been working on, and which  
> has inspired a bit of the current class design.
> 
> http:bibliontology.com
> 
> We ought to be releasing a draft of that soon-ish, BTW.
> 
> Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. What’s your  
> preference?

I like the idea of using the bibliontology - presumably by ‘disadvantages’  
you mean the scope is somewhat larger than using the CSL model? This looks  
like potentially two, related projects: one to model bibliontology in Ruby,  
the other to apply a fomatting language like CSL to it. What I was  
describing as an InputFilter would then be something like a loss-less  
(ideally) conversion utility from BibTeX, DocBook and other schemas to  
bibliontology. This is probably non-trivial to establish a proper set of  
test cases for, but worth considering (you get a fully fledged, largely  
interoperable and semi-standardised(?) domain model for the trouble).  
Another consideration would be using a Ruby RDF library to load and store  
the model as RDF - though this is probably getting off-topic.

In reviewing CSL more thoroughly, another approach is to use ERB to develop  
a CSL-like language (something like RCSL?). This by-passes the need for  
parsing and emulating XSL-like transformations in code - but at the cost of  
expressivity and compatibility with the existing CSL files (which it looks  
like a lot of work has gone into). I’ve done a quick test of this, with a  
simplified citation and ERB file - this is certainly a much easier path to  
go down.

In any case, I’ll keep looking into this - I am looking at refining a  
lightweight citation management system, and both interoperability and  
variable formatting are key requirements.

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2007, 3:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/14 "2007-11-07T15:00:31Z")

</div>

Liam Magee wrote:

> ```
> > However I'm not particularly familiar with the details of these
> (although I
> > have done some work with DocBook and BibTeX).
> 
> I see two approaches on which to base it:
> 
> 1) the CSL model (which is more output oriented)
> 
> 2) the RDF ontology that some of us have been working on, and which
> has inspired a bit of the current class design.
> 
> <http:bibliontology.com <http://bibliontology.com>>
> 
> We ought to be releasing a draft of that soon-ish, BTW.
> 
> Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages. What's your
> preference? 
> 
> ```
> 
> I like the idea of using the bibliontology - presumably by  
> ‘disadvantages’ you mean the scope is somewhat larger than using the CSL  
> model?

Correct.

> This looks like potentially two, related projects: one to model  
> bibliontology in Ruby, the other to apply a fomatting language like CSL  
> to it.

Right.

> What I was describing as an InputFilter would then be something  
> like a loss-less (ideally) conversion utility from BibTeX, DocBook and  
> other schemas to bibliontology. This is probably non-trivial to  
> establish a proper set of test cases for, but worth considering (you get  
> a fully fledged, largely interoperable and semi-standardised(?) domain  
> model for the trouble). Another consideration would be using a Ruby RDF  
> library to load and store the model as RDF - though this is probably  
> getting off-topic.

Maybe, though certainly worth keeping in mind.

When I was working on the model, I was trying to think of it being used  
in potentially a variety of different kinds of contexts, where the  
backend might be the typical Rails-ORM-RDBMS, or text files, or an RDF  
store (since I personally am increasingly interested in citations and  
bibliographic management as a perfect use case for semantic web ideas;  
e.g. there’s still tons of room left for really useful innovation).

> In reviewing CSL more thoroughly, another approach is to use ERB to  
> develop a CSL-like language (something like RCSL?). This by-passes the  
> need for parsing and emulating XSL-like transformations in code - but at  
> the cost of expressivity and compatibility with the existing CSL files  
> (which it looks like a lot of work has gone into). I’ve done a quick  
> test of this, with a simplified citation and ERB file - this is  
> certainly a much easier path to go down.

It may be easier is the short-run, but probably not the long-term.

The intent behind CSL has always been that language-independence is  
crucial. Right now, there aren’t that many styles, but as we start to  
build them up, and as we start to see GUI editors (or wizards) for the  
styles, this is going to change. It would suck to have to recreate the  
styles in two different formats.

> In any case, I’ll keep looking into this - I am looking at refining a  
> lightweight citation management system, and both interoperability and  
> variable formatting are key requirements.

What would be the backend?

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Liam\_Magee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Liam\_Magee](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Liam_Magee)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/15 "2007-11-07T22:36:42Z")

</div>

> > What I was describing as an InputFilter would then be something  
> > like a loss-less (ideally) conversion utility from BibTeX, DocBook and  
> > other schemas to bibliontology. This is probably non-trivial to  
> > establish a proper set of test cases for, but worth considering (you get  
> > a fully fledged, largely interoperable and semi-standardised(?) domain  
> > model for the trouble). Another consideration would be using a Ruby RDF  
> > library to load and store the model as RDF - though this is probably  
> > getting off-topic.
> 
> Maybe, though certainly worth keeping in mind.
> 
> When I was working on the model, I was trying to think of it being used  
> in potentially a variety of different kinds of contexts, where the  
> backend might be the typical Rails-ORM-RDBMS, or text files, or an RDF  
> store (since I personally am increasingly interested in citations and  
> bibliographic management as a perfect use case for semantic web ideas;  
> e.g. there’s still tons of room left for really useful innovation).

This is a good reason for tackling bibliontology as part of this, I think -  
it is more likely people will invest in conversion tools and ontology  
matching techniques for something like this than, say, the implicit model  
referenced as part of CSL. One potential use case would be issuing SPARQL  
queries to a federated RDF store, and post-processing the results with  
differential formatting based on CSL. More practically - has there been any  
attempts to convert bibliontology to an object model to date?

> In reviewing CSL more thoroughly, another approach is to use ERB to
> 
> > develop a CSL-like language (something like RCSL?). This by-passes the  
> > need for parsing and emulating XSL-like transformations in code - but at  
> > the cost of expressivity and compatibility with the existing CSL files  
> > (which it looks like a lot of work has gone into). I’ve done a quick  
> > test of this, with a simplified citation and ERB file - this is  
> > certainly a much easier path to go down.
> 
> It may be easier is the short-run, but probably not the long-term.
> 
> The intent behind CSL has always been that language-independence is  
> crucial. Right now, there aren’t that many styles, but as we start to  
> build them up, and as we start to see GUI editors (or wizards) for the  
> styles, this is going to change. It would suck to have to recreate the  
> styles in two different formats.

I see your point. Some inlined mark-up might be useful somewhere in a system  
like this - it is certainly easier to prototype. It may be possible to  
derive it from the CSL file in some way (i.e be one of the wizards you  
mention), or to use it for the ‘out-driver.xsl’ role. But no, two formats  
would not be good.

> In any case, I’ll keep looking into this - I am looking at refining a
> 
> > lightweight citation management system, and both interoperability and  
> > variable formatting are key requirements.
> 
> What would be the backend?

It’s built around Rails and Postgres (using a model that is basically BibTeX

- a few other properties at the moment).

Regards,

Liam.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/citeproc-rb-status/341/16 "2007-11-09T01:03:33Z")

</div>

Liam Magee wrote:

> This is a good reason for tackling bibliontology as part of this, I  
> think - it is more likely people will invest in conversion tools and  
> ontology matching techniques for something like this than, say, the  
> implicit model referenced as part of CSL. One potential use case would  
> be issuing SPARQL queries to a federated RDF store, and post-processing  
> the results with differential formatting based on CSL. More practically
> 
> - has there been any attempts to convert bibliontology to an object  
> model to date?

Not exactly, though what you see in the current citeproc-rb file  
reflects thinking more-or-less consistent with what you see in the ontology.

For example …

> It’s built around Rails and Postgres (using a model that is basically  
> BibTeX + a few other properties at the moment).

… the ontology has a Contribution class, as did a Rails prototype I  
was playing with (really just the model) awhile back.

Bruce