Z39.50 Proposal

For a Bib-1 Truncation Attribute 105: Masking

October 16: This proposal will be withdrawn November 15 if there is no further comment. See http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-zig/2002Oct/0013.html

 

Note: this proposal supercedes earlier proposal.

Type 105: "Masking": Proposed Definition.

1. A single asterisk (*) is used to mask zero or more characters.
2. A single plus sign (+) is used to mask one or more characters. New
3. A single question mark (?) is used to mask zero or one character.
   Note: This means that N consecutive question-marks means mask zero to N characters.
4. A single vertical bar (|) is used to mask zero or more words. New (and corrected)
5. The meaning when these characters -- '*', '?', '+', '|' -- are used in combination (concatenated) is undefined, with the exception of multiple consecutive question marks as noted in 3, or when the characters are used as literals as described in 6. In particular, adjacent character and word matching is not defined.
6. Backslash is used to escape any of these characters: '*', '?', '+', '|', as well as itself. Thus for example:
   
   • \? is a literal ?
     
   • \* is a literal *
   • \| is a literal |
   • \+ is a literal +
     
   • \\ is a literal \ (See rule 7) (reference added sept. 9))
   • \\* is literal backslash followed by active *.
   • \\\* is literal \*.
7. Backslash not followed immediately by another special character ('*', '?', '+', '|', or another backslash) is an error. New (added Sept. 9)