# group class

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/group-class/360>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [November 16, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/group-class/360 "2007-11-16T22:17:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**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 16, 2007, 10:17pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/group-class/360/1 "2007-11-16T22:17:10Z")

</div>

Julian Onions wrote:

> Can you tell me what  
>   
> does?  
> I keep using it and find I don’t really understand its purpose or actions!  
> What’s the difference between having a class or not? What does the class  
> do?

It doesn’t really do anything, but it does provide some semantics that  
can be passed on to the output format(s).

For example, a processor might output:

\<span class="title\>Some Periodical Title\</span\> \</span\> \</p\> \<p\>In this case, it’d be inserting the class value from CSL into the output.\</p\> \<p\>At some point, perhaps, we’ll have processors outputting RDFa (or\<br\> hCite\*) enhanced content, in which case I’d guess this would become less\<br\> useful.\</p\> \<p\>Bruce\</p\> \<ul\> \<li\>I’m not the biggest fan of microformats, even if I like the basic\<br\> principle.\</li\> \</ul\>