[tei-council] datatype issues (part 1)

[James Cummings]

Christian Wittern wrote:
>>6. tei.data.sex defines four alphabetic values (m f x u) which
>>   correspond to ISO 5218 numeric codes 1 2 0 and 9. Should we not
>>   rather use the ISO codes?
> 
> Hmm.  This raises the general question of how far we want to go in
> pulling in the relevant standards and keeping our descriptions in
> synch. Also, I would rather have some layer of human-readability here,
> which could then under the hood be mapped to the relevant codes. mfxu
> is just so much more intuitive than 1209.  The same issue came also up
> with durations, P35Y vs. 35yrs.  At some point, we planned to have the
> tei.* stuff provide this layer -- is this what Syd is the underlying
> assumption that turned out to be not workable?  In that case, we have
> to rethink the whole strategy, I am afraid. 

I was worried about this as well.  I like the idea of following the 
ISO standard, but 0 1 2 or 9 isn't very human readable to me.  (I'm 
assuming by the way that we are talking about ISO5218:2004 not 
5218:1977, does anyone know what the differences might be?)  Is there 
any benefit in allowing both or having one mapped to the other? Or, as 
Christian asks, is this what proved unworkable?

Trying to find out more about hte 2004 version, I discovered the UK 
government's recommended use of ISO 5218:2004 in their data standards 
catalogue.  I see that this version hasn't added values for 
transgendered individuals etc. as I thought it might have.  (They 
simply seem to suggest recording sex at registration and current sex.) 
http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/gdsc/html/frames/PersonGenderCurrent-2-0-Release.htm 


Is there a way to have someone put 'm' and it be understood in the 
schema as iso 5218's '1'?  (Or put 35yrs and it be understood as P35Y 
?)  Or does this just defeat the point of standards...

-James