OSIS? 2.0.1 User's Manual - Web services are running on AMBIB

• Prov.26.12!b osisRef for the second half of verse 12.
• other examples?
22.4. Grains (optional)
One shortcoming of most reference systems is the inability to point to a particular place
in a line of text. This is of particular interest for Bible study, where the user wants to
point to a particular word in a passage, not the entire passage itself. <strong>OSIS</strong> developed a
syntax that follows the prefix, main osisRef and even the extension (if present) that
allows you to do exactly that.
The grain operators come in two types: 1) cp, which allows you to point at a particular
character in the text, and 2) s, which allows you to point at a string of characters. It is
probably easier to illustrate these separately.
The cp grain operator is a number, enclosed by squ<strong>are</strong> brackets and preceded by the "@"
sign, all of which follows, at a mimimum, the main part of an osisRef. For example:
• RSV:Gen.1.1@cp[8] Points at the starting character of the word "beginning."
• RSV:Gen.3.20@cp[32] Points to the starting character of the word "Eve."
This operator will be the most useful for automated systems that allow users to point and
select a point in the text for automatic generation of this operator. When this syntax was
being developed, the editors made the mistake of picking an example before considering
how tedious it was to count spaces, apostrophes, and other punctuation that goes into the
total for a cp operator. Users who wish to avoid the tedium of (and error prone as well)
counting characters, may wish to use the s operator.
The s grain operator is a string, enclosed by squ<strong>are</strong> brakets and preceded by the "@" sign,
all of which follows, at a mimimum, the main part of an osisRef. For example:
• RSV:Gen.1.1@s[beginning] Points at the starting character of the word
"beginning."
• RSV:Gen.3.20@s[Eve] Points to the starting character of the word "Eve."
You may wish to convince yourself that the s operator is easier to use than cp but to each
his own.
Warning: Note that the s operator does not allow spaces. That is to say that you cannot
put a phrase between the squ<strong>are</strong> brakets. That limiation is due to the handling of spaces in
XML. It was an issue that the editors struggled with for some time but ultimately, it was
decided that word level matching would meet most users needs.
22.5. Ranges (optional)