U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

CBFMT - A STYLE FILE FOR PRODUCING MACHINE READABLE USERS' GUIDES

NCJ Number
68008
Author(s)
R C ROISTACHER
Date Published
Unknown
Length
23 pages
Annotation
THIS REPORT DESCRIBES A FORMAT STYLE FILE FOR PRODUCING USERS' GUIDES FOR MACHINE-READABLE DATA SETS AND DEMONSTRATES ALL OF THE MACROS AND FUNCTIONS USED TO PRODUCE USERS'GUIDES FOR MACHINE-READABLE DATA SETS.
Abstract

It describes the system used to create machine-readable users' guides from OSIRIS III or OSIRIS IV machine-readable dictionaries. The system uses a special purpose program to merge dictionary information from OSIRIS into a format input file. Two libraries of format macros and functions are then used to expand the dictionary and labeling information into a printed users' guide. Although the system has been designed around the format document processing language, it is directly applicable to any document processing language with a macro facility. By suitable redefining of format macros, the same file can serve as a machine-readable codebook, a paper questionnaire, a driver for a computer assisted telephone interviewing program, and an input file to an information retrieval system. An example of a machine-readable users' guide, in conformance with the style outlined in 'a style manual for machine-readable data and their documentation' and containing examples of the use of all macros and functions in CBFMT, is appended. Footnotes are provided. (Author Abstract Modified)