1. Application of XSLT Stylesheet to XML Atsushi Shimazaki Japan Meteorological Agency - WMO Workshop on Metadata - September 2005, Beijing, China

2. Availability of WMO publications for computer processing WMO has published diverse types of information for operational meteorological services as regulations, catalogues and so on. Some of them are used in computer processing, for example: - Manual on Codes (WMO-No.306) - paper, pdf and doc - Weather reporting (WMO-No.9) - pdf and text including BUFR/CREX tables, Common code tables, etc. REGULATION CATALOGUE including International station index numbers (Vol.A) Catalogue of meteorological bulletins (Vol. C1) Catalogue of meteorological bulletins (Vol. C1) etc. etc. pdf: Adobe(R) acrobat(R), doc: Microsoft(R) Word

3. Advantages/disadvantages of formats text, csv (text delimited by comma) - Alphanumeric, line feed, etc. html, doc, xls (MS Excel), pdf - text, character style, etc. suit for computer processing, but not for human reading suit for human reading and processing, but not for computer processing, expensive software for editing and large volume xls: Microsoft(R) Excel Simple format paper paper - suit for human reading, but computer processing's impossible Rich style info.

4. Basic format of WMO Publications Diverse formats, such as paper, text, pdf, doc, etc. are adopted for WMO Publications for computer processing If information in necessary formats are created from one, it will be useful in both maintenance and utilization. XML can be a basic format for the purpose. Reason: 1) International standard (W3C - World Wide Web Consortium, 1998) Consortium, 1998) 2) Expandability 2) Expandability 3) Availability of tools for file conversion 3) Availability of tools for file conversion

5. WMO Core Metadata Profile WMO Core Metadata Profile provides information about datasets: such as information for identification, quality, distribution, constraint on access, access measures, geographic extent etc. Introducing WMO Core Metadata Profile into XML will enhance usability of datasets.

6. Advantages/disadvantages of formats -2 text, csv (text delimited by comma) - Alphanumeric, line feed, etc. html, doc, xls (MS Excel), pdf - text, character style, etc. xml - text with metadata suit for computer processing, but not for human reading suit for worldwide exchange and computer processing, but not for human processing xls: Microsoft(R) Excel Simple format paper paper - suit for human reading, but computer processing's impossible Metadata and tags Rich style info. suit for human reading and processing, but not for computer processing, expensive software for editing and large volume

7. Relationship between each format Human reading Computer processing Human processing paper, xls (MS Excel), doc, html, etc. paper, xls, doc, html, etc. txt, csv, etc. Exchange xml with metadata

8. A possible flow of format conversion focused on XML Human reading Computer processing Human processing xls html txt Exchange xml with metadata XSLT style sheet Manual conversion

9. XSLT Stylesheet What is XSLT Stylesheet: - a tool to create text, html and other formats from XML - stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations - standard of W3C (16 Nov. 1999)

10. Migration to Table Driven Code Forms (TDCFs) Dec. 2002 CBS Ext. (02) approved draft Plan for migration to TDCFs CBS Ext. (02) approved draft Plan for migration to TDCFs May. 2003 Cg-XIV approved draft Plan for migration to TDCFs Cg-XIV approved draft Plan for migration to TDCFs Nov. 2005 Operational migration of SYNOP, TEMP, CLIMAT etc. will start Operational migration of SYNOP, TEMP, CLIMAT etc. will start Encoder/decoder for BUFR/CREX data will be used worldwide. BUFR/CREX tables in computer readable format is indispensable indispensable

11. A possible flow of format conversion focused on XML -2 Human reading Computer processing Human processing xls html txt Exchange xml with metadata XSLT style sheet Manual conversion

12. An example of XSLT stylesheet for text conversion <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml1/strict">,,,

13. An example of XSLT stylesheet for html conversion Status Table Ref Element Name BUFR CREX F X Y Unit Scale

15. Summary 1. Diverse formats adopted for WMO Publications, especially intended for computer processing, can be reorganized according to their purpose as follows: a) for maintenance - doc, xsl, etc. b) for exchange - xml c) for computer processing - text, csv d) for human reading - html (also printable) 2. For conversion from b) to c) and d) formats, XSLT Stylesheet can be used. The browser (I.E.) may be used for conversion. 3. This scheme can be applied to other WMO publications for computer processing, such as volumes of WMO-No.9.