Tralics and the Raweb

A short history of the Raweb may be found on the Inria internal web site Inria internal website. The question concerns Inria's Annual Activity Report, also known as Rapport d'activité, or Annexe technique to the RA or annexes scientifiques to the RA. This is a document, written by the research teams, at the end of the year N (October, November), and published in March of year N+1.

Until the 1993 edition (published in 1994), only a paper version existed. A LaTeX model was used since 1987, designed by Jacques André then Martin Jourdan. See the following paper, Une expérience d'utilisation de LaTeX : le Rapport d'activité de l'INRIA by Louarn in the first Cahiers Gutenberg.

In 1993, contacts were made with the Grif S.A. society, for the design of a SGML DTD and a LaTeX-to-SGML converter. As a result, Philippe Louarn was able to put on the web the RA (year 1994) in its HTML version. But this was judged too complicated, and for several years, the HTML was directly produced from the LaTeX source, using latex2html (example: miaou95).

In 1996, a working group (conducted by Albert Benveniste) gave new specifications: independent modules, grouped into ten sections, etc. A technical group was created, whose objective was to find a company that could sell a software (maybe using XML as intermediate language). None was found, but the design of modules (in LaTeX syntax) was well-defined by Laurent Pierron and José Grimm. For the Ra98, a Perl script did some preprocessing, splitting the LaTeX source into modules (one module per HTML page) (example: miaou98).

In 1999, the Scientific Annexes to Inria's Annual Report were renamed RAWEB, to emphasize the role played by the Web (it is available as a CD-Rom, but no more printed by Inria).

In 2001, the Perl scripts mentioned above evolved into a LaTeX-to-XML converter (some ideas were borrowed from latex2html, which is also a Perl script). The main trouble was conversion from XML to Pdf, and we used tools from the TeX community (by S. Rahtz and D. Carlisle) and PdfLaTeX. On the other hand, the images in the HTML files were converted by LaTeX. Additional software (indexes, etc.) was written/used by Marie-Pierre Durollet.

This gave a complicated object: a Perl script, that converts a LaTeX file into XML (using Omega as a subprocess for the math) followed by another Perl script that extracts the math, calls latex, then dvips, then pstoimg (a Perl script that calls ppmquant, pncrop, and so forth, whose job is to produce a png image for the math formula), and finally an XSLT processor for the effective conversion. (example: miaou2001).

1.2 Birth of Tralics

The big Perl script was rewritten as a C++ translator, renamed Tralics, and got (for version 1.6) a first IDDN number in Dec. 2002. This software was still able to produce a LaTeX preview of the Raweb: The source is read, the syntax is tested, a LaTeX file is written for each module, latex and bibtex are called, the resulting dvi is converted to PostScript. But the same Tralics can be used in a different way: the source is read, the syntax is tested, an XML file is created, an XSLT processor is called to generate the XSL/FO, and PdfLaTeX generates the Pdf (you can also generate an HTML version). (example: miaou2003).

Note that in 2003, there were a few people writing their RA directly in XML. As a consequence, the new Tralics, to be be used in 2004, does only the bare minimum: it converts the LaTeX into XML. There is a Perl script that does everything else (calling external programs like latex, xsltproc, etc). A non-obvious point concerns conversion of math and images into HTML. Currently, a Perl script extracts the math, uses LaTex to produce a dvi file, which in converted to PostScript then png format.

Since 2005, the XML version of the Raweb is available on the web; its DTD is different from what Tralics produces; the research report inria-0000077 describes both DTDs and the XSL style sheet that does the conversion.

Since 2008, a raweb file is like another file. The pre-processor (with all its fatal errors) has been removed, as well as the postprocessor. All commands, specific to the raweb like \project are now defined in a style file (to be used via a class file), they may use some primitives that extract data from a configuration file.

2. Overview of the system

2.1 Requirements of the Raweb

We give here an example of a real file. It is an abridged version of the Report of the MIAOU project. The input to Tralics is: one TeX file (that can input other TeX files), one, two or three bibliography files, and some image files. These three bibliography files can be merged into a single one; and the filecontents environment might be used to insert the bibliography in the TeX source.

In the example, we have three bibliography files: miaou2003.bib, miaou_foot2003.bib, and miaou_refer2003.bib and one image (The image is extracted from a power-point presentation, converted to PostScript, then Pdf; the image shown here is the png version of the PostScript file obtained via convert; you can see this on the web, and notice a loss of quality.) The image explains how Tralics is connected to the other processes.

When translating a file, Tralics can be in Raweb mode or not. Differences between Raweb and non-raweb modes are tiny: they concern essentially the bibliography (there are some tests that check if an item is in the correct bibliography file). In Raweb mode, the input file should be foo2004.tex, where foo matches the name of team, and the document class should be ra2004 (replace 2004 by the current year). Non-ascii characters, as well as uppercase letters are forbidden.

2.2 Trivial examples

Example 1. An important point is that Tralics compiles only TeX files, i.e. whose names end with .tex. If no extension is given, one is added. The .xml extension is replaced by .tex.

grimm@medee$ tralics my_file.xml
This is tralics 2.13.0, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on medee
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2008, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Fatal error: Cannot open input file my_file.tex

Example 2. Earlier versions of Tralics refused to translate files that are not in the current directory.

grimm@medee$ tralics /floppy/foo etc
This is tralics 2.8, a LaTeX to XML translator
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2006, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Fatal error
Absolute or relative pathnames not allowed: /floppy/foo

Example 2bis. Since version 2.10.7 Tralics accepts to translate files that are not in the current directory. By default, the XML result and transcript files are put in the same directory as the input, but this can be changed.

maclaurin@grimm$  tralics ../Test/hello -outputdir=/tmp -logfile=x -silent
This is tralics 2.15.4, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on maclaurin
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS/MARELLE 2002-2015, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting translation of file ../Test/hello.tex.
Output written on /tmp/hello.xml (187 bytes).
No error found.
(For more information, see transcript file /tmp/x.log)

Example 3. In the examples 3 to 6, we use the -silent switch to reduce verbosity, and we translate a trivial TeX file. Here we demontrate the -dir switch. This option has currrently no effect anymore.

maclaurin@grimm$ tralics hello -dir none -silent
This is tralics 2.15.4, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on maclaurin
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS/MARELLE 2002-2015, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting translation of file hello.tex.
Output written on hello.xml (187 bytes).
No error found.
(For more information, see transcript file hello.log)

grimm@medee$ tralics -noconfig hello -silent
This is tralics 2.8, a LaTeX to XML translator
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2006, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting xml processing for hello.
No configuration file.
Output written on hello.xml (171 bytes).
No error found.
(For more information, see transcript file hello.log)

Example 5. In version 2.8, you could set the shell variable TRALICSDIR to a directory containing the configuration file. This has no effect any more, and the translation is the same as in example 3.

grimm@medee$ TRALICSDIR=.. tralics hello -silent
This is tralics 2.13.0, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on medee
...
(For more information, see transcript file hello.log)

Example 6. Here the configuration file is found via default rules. Translation is the same as in example 3.

In all these examples, the TeX file contains a single line Hello, world!. The translation is

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='iso-8859-1'?>
<!DOCTYPE unknown SYSTEM 'unknown.dtd'>
<!-- translated from latex by tralics 2.8-->
<unknown>
<p>Hello, world!
</p></unknown>

There are some differences between version 2.8 and the current version. For instance the compilation date has been added in the XML, thus making it a bit larger (192 bytes instead of 171). The default encoding is now UTF-8, this makes the file smaller; finally, the length of the version number impacts the length of the XML result. The sentence starting xml processing for hello has been replaced by Starting translation of file hello.tex. If the -silent option is given, information about configuration file is not printed on the terminal.

Raweb mode is entered if the type is ra. The type can be specified in the configuration file (the .tralics_rc file; we assume that either no configurationn file, or the standard configuration one will be used). If you call Tralics with option type=foo, then the type will be foo. Otherwise, if you call Tralics with option config=bar2005, and if bar2005.tcf exists, the type will be bar. Otherwise, if the file has \documentclass{gee2003}, and gee2003.tcf or gee.tcf exists, then the type will be gee; otherwise some default type will be used. The tcf file will be loaded, if given or deduced.

Let's assume that we have a file containing two lines, the first one is \documentclass{ra2003}, the second one is Hello, world! as above. Assume that the file has three names xhello.tex, hello2003.tex and hello2006.tex. All these files will be translated in Raweb mode. No XML file will be produced unless the four digits that appear in the document class are also in the file name, this is the case only for hello2003.

Example 7. We translate here file xhello.tex. Since the file name has no digits in it, you will get an error of the form Input file name must be team name followed by 2008. With version 2.8, the -verbose switch produces a great number of lines, explaining what happens (current version is less verbose).

grimm@medee$ tralics xhello -verbose
This is tralics 2.8, a LaTeX to XML translator
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2006, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting xml processing for xhello.
Configuration file identification: standard $ Revision: 2.24 $
Read configuration file /user/grimm/home/cvs/tralics/.tralics_rc.
Configuration file has type \documentclass
Seen \documentclass ra2003
Potential type is ra2003
...
Configuration file identification: standard-ra $ Revision: 2.1 $
Read tcf file for type: ../confdir/ra.tcf
Using type ra
...
dtd is raweb from raweb3.dtd (mode RAWEB2006)
Fatal error: Please add 2006 in the name of the input file
Fatal_error for xhello
Say tralics --help to get some help

Example 8. You can use the option -year=2008; this sets a variable to be 2008; in Raweb mode, this can produce an error of the form Option -year=2008 incompatible with year in source file, is ignored otherwise. Even without this switch, the file will not compile, because of a mismatch between the year of the file, and that of the document class.

grimm@medee$ tralics hello2006
This is tralics 2.13.0, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on medee
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2008, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting translation of file hello2006.tex.
Configuration file identification: standard $ Revision: 2.24 $
Read configuration file ../confdir/.tralics_rc.
Configuration file identification: standard-ra $ Revision: 2.4 $
Read tcf file ../confdir/ra.tcf
Illegal document class ra2003 should be ra2006

Example 9. Final test: we translate the file hello2003. Tralics version 2.8 uses a preprocessor that complains in case of unbalanced environments.

[2]grimm@medee$ tralics hello2003
This is tralics 2.8, a LaTeX to XML translator
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2006, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting xml processing for hello2003.
Configuration file identification: standard $ Revision: 2.24 $
Read configuration file /user/grimm/home/cvs/tralics/.tralics_rc.
Configuration file identification: standard-ra $ Revision: 2.1 $
Read tcf file for type: ../confdir/ra.tcf
Error signaled at line 3:
Missing \end{document}.
Fatal_error for hello2003

Example 10. In version 2.10.7, the preprocessor is not called if the year is 2007 or greater (this is indicated by the line Simplified RA). Thus, we can copy hello2003 into hello2007, replacing 2003 by 2007 is the document class. Compilation succeeds.

grimm@macarthur$ tralics hello2007 -silent
This is tralics 2.10.7, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on macarthur
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2007, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting translation of file hello2007.tex.
Read tcf file ../confdir/ra2007.tcf
Simplified RA
Translation done 
Output written on hello.xml (249 bytes).
No error found.
(For more information, see transcript file hello2007.log)
rahandler.pl v2.15, (C) 2004 2006 INRIA, Jos\'e Grimm, Team Apics
Postprocessor did nothing

Example 11. In version 2.13, both the preprocessor and postprocessors are removed. Note the following differences between examples 10 and 11. The line Simplified RA has been removed, as well as the two lines dealing with the postprocessor. There is a file ra2007.tcf but no file ra2003.tcf (because ra.tcf can be used instead). Finally, the class file ra2007.clt was added to the system after example 10 was run.

grimm@medee$ tralics hello2003
This is tralics 2.13.0, a LaTeX to XML translator, running on medee
Copyright INRIA/MIAOU/APICS 2002-2008, Jos\'e Grimm
Licensed under the CeCILL Free Software Licensing Agreement
Starting translation of file hello2003.tex.
Read tcf file ../confdir/ra.tcf
Document class: ra2003 2008/07/12 v1.0 Activity Report, Inria 2003
Output written on hello.xml (249 bytes).
No error found.
(For more information, see transcript file hello2003.log)

In Raweb mode, the magic line \AtBeginDocument{\rawebstartdocument} is executed. The effect of this command is to translate the metadata (name of the team, etc); it is defined by the class file. Our little file compiles because there is no \begin{document}. Translation is

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='iso-8859-1'?>
<!DOCTYPE raweb SYSTEM 'raweb7.dtd'>
<!-- Translated from latex by tralics 2.10.7, date: 2007/11/03-->
<raweb language='english' creator='Tralics version 2.10.7' year='2007'>
<p>Hello, world!</p>
</raweb>

Tralics version 2.15.4 however complains with No module in section composition and four other errors; this is because the configuration file imposes these sections to be non-empty (they are marked special in the configuration file). On the other hand, there is no problem with hello2007. Note: the year field in raweb element is the same as the document class, and not the compilation date.

2.3 Main document

We make here the following assumption: the document is named foo2003.tex, the document class is ra2003 (same year), and a configuration file specifying type RA is seen. In this case, RA mode is entered. Before 2007, there was a preprocessor, that did some checks, rearranged the code, etc. In what follows, we explain what happens with the example of 2003 and what is new in 2007 or 2008.

A first difference in 2007 is that you will not see fatal error, missing \project anymore (a normal error will be signaled instead when translating the start of the document). A well-formed configuration file is required. If you get a message like the following, please contact the raweb team.

Read tcf file ra2007.tcf
The configuration file for the RA is ra2007.tcf or ra.tcf
It must define a value for the parameter ur_vals
See transcript file apics2007.log for details
No xml file generated
Fatal_error for apics2007

2.3.1 The Configuration File

The configuration file for the raweb is named ra.tcf (generic code) or ra2008.tcf (this one is specific to the year 2008). Its content is similar to what is described here. The generic ra.tcf configuration file has a block of commands, the specific files have none (all commands specific to the raweb are now in the ra.plt file, included by the \documentclass command). The file starts with

This has as effect to define the preamble of the XML result file (see translation of example 10 above). There are lines of the following form:

  bibtex_fields = "x-editorial-board" 
  bibtex_fields = "+x-international-audience" 
  bibtex_fields = "+x-proceedings" 
  bibtex_fields = "+x-invited-conference"
  bibtex_fields = "+x-scientific-popularization" 
  bibtex_fields = "+x-pays"
  bibtex_fields = "+url-hal" 
  bibtex_extensions = "patent standard"
  bibtex_extensions = "+hdrthesis"

The left hand side may be bibtex_extensions or bibtex_fields, the right hand side is a space-separated list of items (you can insert line breaks as in the case of fullsection_vals below). The list may start with a plus sign; this means append to the previous value (default is overwrite it). The meaning of these lines is the following: when Tralics interprets the bibliography, it recognizes (for every entry type) the fields x-editorial-board, x-international-audience, etc, including url-hal; it also recognizes the entry types patent, standard and hdrthesis. An element in the list may be preceded by a minus sign; in which case, it will be ignored (ignoring entry types may provoke undefined references). Assume for instance that the bibliography contains

@phdthesis{TEILR09,
title = {TEI},
author = {Laurent Romary},
school = {Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin},
url =  "http://www.hu-berlin.de/",
year = 2015, 
x-editorial-board = "yes",
x-international-audience = "yes",
x-proceedings = "no",
x-invited-conference = "yes",
x-scientific-popularization = "yes",
x-pays = {xx,yy}  ,
x-other = "ignored" ,
url-hal ="http://hal.inria.fr/",
}
@patent{Algo09,
author = {Gaëtan Bisson and Răzvan Bărbulescu},
Title = {Algorithmes unicode pour les lettres Ààéçœ et Ñ},
year = 2015,
x-pays= {CH,HK}
}

<citation from='year' key='7' id='bid15' userid='cite:TEILR09' type='phdthesis'>
<bauteurs><bpers prenom='L.' nom='Romary' prenomcomplet='Laurent'/></bauteurs>
<btitle>TEI</btitle>
<btype>Ph. D. Thesis</btype>
<xref url='http://www.hu-berlin.de/'>http://<allowbreak/>www.<allowbreak/>hu-berlin.
  <allowbreak/>de/</xref><x-editorial-board>yes</x-editorial-board>
<x-international-audience>yes</x-international-audience>
<x-proceedings>no</x-proceedings>
<x-invited-conference>yes</x-invited-conference>
<x-scientific-popularization>yes</x-scientific-popularization>
<x-pays>xx,yy</x-pays>
<url-hal>http://hal.inria.fr/</url-hal>
</citation>
<citation from='year' key='15' id='bid2' userid='cite:Algo09' type='patent'>
<bauteurs><bpers prenom='G.' nom='Bisson' prenomcomplet='Gaëtan'/>
  <bpers prenom='R.' nom='Bărbulescu' prenomcomplet='Răzvan'/></bauteurs>
<btitle>Algorithmes unicode pour les lettres Ààéçœ et Ñ</btitle>
<x-pays>CH,HK</x-pays>
</citation>

Finally, the ra2008.tcf file contains also the following lines that defines five lists.

  section_vals = "composition*/presentation*/fondements/domaine/logiciels/"
  section_vals = "+resultats/contrats*/international*/diffusion*/"
  theme_vals = "Com Cog Num Sym Bio"
  ur_vals = "Rocquencourt//Sophia/Sophia Antipolis/Rennes//Lorraine//";
  ur_vals = "+RhoneAlpes/Rh\^one-Alpes/Futurs//"
  affiliation_vals ="Inria//Cnrs//University//ForeignUniversity//"
  affiliation_vals ="+Public//Other//"
  profession_vals = "Scientist//Assistant//Technical//PHD//"
  profession_vals = "+PostDoc//StudentIntern//Other//"

The quantity theme_vals is a list of words, separated by spaces, converted to lower case. The quantity section_vals is a list of words, separated by slash characters (with possibly a star at the end; these are called special). For all other variables of the form something_vals, it is a list of pairs, name and value, separated by slashes. If the value is empty, the name is used instead. An initial plus sign means continuation. The final slash can be omitted; an initial slash is ignored.

Since 2007, the English title associated to a (French) section name has been moved to the configuration file; it is given by fullsection_vals (that should be used instead of section_vals; with this syntax, there are no special sections anymore). As the following demonstrates, you can put a string on more than one line, provided that the last character on the line is a backslash.

  fullsection_vals = "/composition/Team/presentation/Overall Objectives/\
     fondements/Scientific Foundations/domaine/Application Domains/\
     logiciels/Software/resultats/New Results/\
     contrats/Contracts and Grants with Industry/\
     international/Other Grants and Activities/diffusion/Dissemination"
  xml_rasection = "section"

The translation of a section, for instance composition, is <composition>. If the configuration file defines xml_rasection, this will be the name of the element; the value extracted from fullsection_vals becomes an attribute; example <section titre='Team'>. Note that the start and end of a section is determined by the modules it contains.

The transcript file contains some lines, showing how Tralics interprets the configuration file. You might see the following lines.

theme_vals=Com Cog Num Sym Bio
Section: composition -> Team
Section: presentation -> Overall Objectives
Section: fondements -> Scientific Foundations
Section: domaine -> Application Domains
Section: logiciels -> Software
Section: resultats -> New Results
Section: contrats -> Contracts and Grants with Industry
Section: international -> Other Grants and Activities
Section: diffusion -> Dissemination
UR: Rocquencourt -> Rocquencourt
UR: Sophia -> Sophia Antipolis
UR: Rennes -> Rennes
UR: Lorraine -> Lorraine
+UR: RhoneAlpes -> Rh\^one-Alpes
UR: Futurs -> Futurs

2.3.2 Interpreting the Configuration File

Tralics has a command \tralics@get@config{X}{Y} that returns a value Z, according to the following rules.

2.3.3 The main document

\documentclass{ra2003}         %001
<Header>
\begin{document}               %016
\maketitle                     %019
<Modules>
\loadbiblio                    %488
\end{document}                 %489

Here, and in the examples that follow, blue numbers are the line numbers of the corresponding lines in the example file. Things like <Modules> are explained below. The \documentclass should be ra2006 for the year 2006.

2.3.4 The header

The header of the file is everything before \begin{document}. It should not produce any text. There is a free part and a required one, they can be intermixed. The free part contains definitions and \usepackage commands. We recommend to always use \newcommand instead of \def (do not follow the example). You should not load packages like french or babel, because the current language of the Raweb is English. For instance:

\usepackage{amsfonts}          %002
\usepackage{amsmath}
\def\CC{{\mathbb C}}           %009
\newcommand{\etc}{etc}
\def\corresp{manager}

\projet{MIAOU}{Miaou}{Mathématiques et 
     Informatique de l'Automatique et de l'Optimisation pour 
  l'Utilisateur}               %006
\theme{4a}                     %004
\isproject{YES} % \isproject{OUI} works also %005
\UR{\URSophia}                 %007

See Changes in 2007 and Changes in 2008 for some changes introduced for the RA2007 or RA2008. There are no fatal errors any more.

2.3.5 The Team Name and Properties

The \isproject command take one argument that should be true if the team is a Project-Team (according to local terminology). The current version of the ra.plt package uses the xkeyval mechanism in order to allow variants (équipes, actions transversales, whatever, see instructions).

The \project command (it can be spelled as \projet) takes three arguments Uname, Sname and Lname. Here Sname is the short name of the Team, and Lname its long name. The short name could be as complicated as πr². The long name is a bit more explicit and should be in English.

The first argument Uname should match the file name, miaou2003.tex. The code that follows uses \ra@jobname, this holds miaou. It is like jobname, except that the directory part, and the year has been stripped; in particular, all characters have category code 12 (except for space), so detokenize has to be used. In earlier versions, Uname had to be all uppercase.

  \edef\tmpB{\ra@jobname}
  \def\tmpA##1{\lowercase{\xdef\tmpA{\detokenize{##1}}}}
  \expandafter\tmpA\expandafter{\ra@proj@a}
  \ifx\tmpA\tmpB \else\PackageError{Raweb}{Invalid Team name \ra@proj@a}{}\fi

2.3.6 The Theme

The \theme command takes as argument a Theme (Research Teams are grouped into domains, split into themes). Between 1996 and 2003, research themes were identified by a digit, between 1 and 4, followed by a letter; giving 4a as argument has as effect to insert in the HTML a link to the theme 4 (this link is probably broken now). In 2004, the list of domains/themes changed, and checking become more complex. You can see errors of the form Invalid theme 4a, Valid themes are com cog num sym bio, where the list comes from the configuration file (converted to lower case). Here COM stands for Communicating systems, one of its themes being Distributed systems and software architecture). In 2009, the list changed again: apics (successor of miaou) is in domain Mathématiques appliquées, calcul et simulation (in English Applied Mathematics, Computation and Simulation), and theme Modeling, Optimization, and Control of Dynamic Systems. This information, as well as a link to the correct URL, is now inserted into the HTML or Pdf version of the RA by an xsl stylesheet, according to the value of the team name. As a consequence, the argument of the \theme command is now ignored.

2.3.7 The Localisation

The \UR command takes as argument a list of Research Units. The default configuration file shown above gives the list of valid names. In 2007 they are Rocquencourt, Sophia, Rennes, Lorraine, RhoneAlpes and Futurs. Since then Futurs has been replaced by Bordeaux, Lille and Saclay. Before 2007, you had to say \UR{\URSophia} (for a team in a single UR) or \UR{\URFuturs\URSophia} for a team in two URs. This is still accepted, but the recommended syntax is now \UR{Sophia} (for a team in a single UR) or \UR{Futurs,Sophia} where the comma could be replaced by a space. The list is interpreted by \tralics@interpret@rc that can signal an error of the form:

Error signaled at line 22 of file exemple2006.tex:
Illegal localisation value: Saclay
Use one or more of: Rocquencourt Sophia Rennes Lorraine RhoneAlpes Futurs.

2.3.8 The Topics

Topics are defined if the ra.plt package is called with option topic. Otherwise the two lines above are ignored as well as the optional argument of the module environment. Topics have been declared obsolete in 2007, so they exist only for compatibility reason, and no error is signaled anymore. Each topic has a name and a title. The name can be an optional argument of module (see the example, lines 79, 207 212 and 322.) Topics are handled via a call to \tralics@get@config{section}{XX}. See for instance the reports of isa 2003, isa 2004 or odyssee 2005.

2.3.9 Preprocessor Limitations

We list here some errors signaled by the preprocessor; this concerns only the RA2006 and before.

Lines containing \theme etc, should not contain anything else after the arguments. Replacing the % line 5 by a _ will give this message

Error signaled at line 5:
Characters ignored at end of line
current line is  _ \isproject{OUI} works also
error is at position 1 at character _ (ascii 95).
Fatal_error for miaou2003

You cannot say \def\foo{YES}\isproject\foo, because the program looks for explicit braces. Example:

Error signaled at line 5:
Characters ignored before open brace
error signaled while scanning isproject
current line is \foo % \isproject{OUI} works also
error is at position 0 at character \ (ascii 92).
Fatal_error for miaou2003

Before 2006, Tralics created file, named _hyperref.cfg, containing all the keywords in alphabetic order. You could see errors of the form

Error at line 107
Strange keywords 

meromorphic approximation, frequency-domain identification,
extremal problems {$(\max,+)$}

The participants environment should contain only \pers{}{}[] commands, separated by commas.

Error signaled at line 253:
Syntax error near `and \pers{xx}{yy}'

\pers{Jean-Paul}{Marmorat} and \pers{xx}{yy}.
Fatal_error for miaou2003

Error signaled at line 253:
Superfluous comma

\pers{Jean-Paul}{Marmorat},, \pers{xx}{yy}
\pers{Martine}{Olivi}[\corresp]
.
Fatal_error for miaou2003

The \pers command can be used in a participants or catperso environment. In one case, you must use commas as separators, in the other case, you cannot. In the current version, the comma after \pers is optional, so that you won't see

Error signaled at line 253:
There must be a comma between two \pers

\pers{Jean-Paul}{Marmorat}\pers{xx}{yy}
\pers{Martine}{Olivi}[\corresp]
.
Fatal_error for miaou2003

Error signaled at line 44:
Syntax error near `, \pers{x}{y}'
{Ph. D. Students}
\pers{David}{Avanessoff}[Fellow, INRIA], \pers{x}{y}.
Fatal_error for miaou2003

The distiction between environments participants and participants has been removed, there is no more

For the environment ending near line 191
please use `participant' or `participante' for the name,
as there is only one \pers in the list.
For the environment ending near line 253:
please use `participants' or `participantes' for the name,
as there are 2 \pers in the list.

The following error message was introduced in 2007, after removal of the preprocessor. You will not see anymore in 2008.

Error signaled at line 3095 of file apics2007.tex:
Text found in a mode where no text is allowed.
Only \pers commands should appear in a participants environment

2.4 Modules

A module is an environment, with some arguments: an optional topic reference (see above), and three required arguments (section, name, title). It is followed by an optional interface (formed of contributors, keywords, glossary, and moreinfo) and text. Since a module is essentially a \subsection, the text should contain only \subsubsection and \paragraph commands. Modules cannot be nested. The first module is special, we shall explain it later. The second module looks like this

\begin{module}{presentation}{presentation}{} %047
\begin{moreinfo}                             %048
The project was terminated June the 30th, 2003. 
A proposal for a new project named APICS has been submitted to the steering
committee of Inria Sophia Antipolis.
\end{moreinfo}
...
\end{module}                                 %076

It should be a small description of the main research objectives of the Team. You can use the moreinfo environment for emphasizes (in this example, to indicate that this is the last RA for the miaou Team). Historical note: Miaou has been effectively dissolved on 2003-31-12, was replaced by Apics on 2004-01-01, which became a Project on 2005-01-01.

The standard configuration file (see above) defines nine sections. The Raweb DTD associates to each section an English name, shown in parenthesis here. Since 2007, the names have been moved to the configuration file (see above)

The first argument of a module, the section, is handled by calling \tralics@get@config{fullsection}{#1} whose behavior is described above. If this defines a new section, the previous section (if any) is popped via \tralics@pop@section and a new section is created via \tralics@push@section{#1}.

The section may be empty, case where no new section is created. If there is no current section, you will see an error of the form No default section. Normally, composition is the first module (see below) and the first section. So, if the first module has an empty section and is followed by the composition, you will see a second error Composition must be before first module and a third Only one module accepted in composition. If a module with empty section follows the composition, you will only see the last of these three message.

If the section is not in the list of valid sections defined by the configuration file, you will get an error of the form Invalid section Domaine followed by Valid sections are composition presentation fondements domaine logiciels resultats contrats international diffusion (it could be followed by the errors listed above).

Note You can notice that the module starting at line 359 is in the section resultats, but it comes after the modules of the section contrats. This is allowed by the preprocessor : modules are re-ordered. This feature is removed in 2007. You will see the error Bad section fondements after diffusion followed by Order of sections is composition presentation fondements domaine logiciels resultats contrats partenariat diffusion (it could be followed by a second error).

The second item in a module, name, is a symbolic name, that uniquely defines the module; it must be unique, or else an error of the form Class Raweb Error: Duplicate module: dif-anim is signaled. Since a label (for instance mod:presentation, is created and anchored to the module, there will be another error Label 'mod:dif-anim' multiply defined (first use line 667 file exemple2006.tex). Trying to use special commands (for instance math formulas) can produce errors of the form unexpected element formula.

Finally a module has a title. In the example, three modules have an empty title: line 22, line 47, and line 183. This is somehow weird, so, unless ra.plt is loaded with option emptymodule, an empty title is replaced by (Sans Titre). Before 2008, a complicated algorithm was used by the post-processor to deal with the case of empty modules titles. In the current version, an error is signaled and a default title is used.

2.5 Module Interface

A typical module should contain an interface and a body. The interface is formed of contributors, keywords, glossary, and moreinfo. The original idea was that body is defined by a body environment. This has been simplified: it can be any text, including subsections with their own interface. In a section like Overall objectives, you do not cite contributors (because you talk about the whole Team), and in a section like Dissemination, you do not cite them either (in fact, names appear in the body of the module, for instance line 436 and line 470). Example

\begin{module}{}{calcul formel}{Software aspects of computer algebra}
  \begin{participants}
    \pers{Jean}[de]{La Fontaine}[1621-1695]
    \pers{Cecil Blount}{De Mille}
  \end{participants}
  \begin{motscle}
    mot1, mot2, mot3
  \end{motscle}
  \begin{glossaire}
    \glo{trick}{the thing which makes go the thingummy}
    \glo{BabelFish}{the translator of the previous sentence}
  \end{glossaire}
  \begin{moreinfo}
    This work was sponsored by all the sponsors
  \end{moreinfo}
  This is the body of the module.
\end{module}

The moreinfo is technically a moreinfo environment. It is formed of a short paragraph (of the form: this work done in collaboration with X).

The keywords are indicated by the motscle environment; examples are given at line 104, line 136, line 193, line 202, and line 225. The environment contains a comma separated list of keywords. The last example shows how to put commas into a keyword. Keywords have become obsolete. Later on, the powers that be have reintroduced a global list of keywords, with a different syntax.

A glossary is a glossaire environment in which you can put \glo commands; they take two arguments: a word and its description. There is a dummy example line 475. In the current version, there is no possibility to make a reference to the items of the glossary.

A contributors list is given by a participants environment. Since 2008, this produces a <participants> element. For compatibility reasons with the initial (French) version, you can use participant, participante or participantes. If the ra package is called with option participant, then the name of the element is the name of the environment. Inside the environment, empty lines are ignored and \pers is defined to be \persA. Examples are line 094, line 126, line 189, line 219, line 233, line 243, line 250, line 265, and line 274.

2.6 First Module

2.6.1 Original syntax

The first section contains a single module, for instance, the one starting at line 22. Its name is useless. It should contain only catperso environments (but this is not checked). Examples are line 24, line 28, line 32, line 36, and line 40. Each such environment has a title, and contains a list of names, like the participants environment, without commas.

The syntax of the \pers command is the following: first name, particle, last name and moreinfo. An example is the following: \pers{Jean}[de]{La Fontaine}[1621-1695]. Arguments in braces an mandatory, arguments in brackets are optional. We recommend the syntax \pers{Jean}{de la Fontaine}, since Tralics does nothing with the particle apart prefixing it to the last name. In the first module, the moreinfo may indicate that some contributor has a grant from Inria, or whatever, and for non permanent people, their arrival, and departure date (as in line 43); this could also indicate a collaboration of another organism, for instance like in line 97;

2.6.2 The 2006 semantics

In 2006, the syntax of \pers changed. The \persA command is the one described above, the syntax of \persB is first name, particle, last name (same meaning as above), CR, profession, affiliation, moreinfo, HDR. The last two arguments are optional; a non-empty value of HDR means that the person has a Thèse d'état or a Habilitation à diriger les Recherches. The CR argument was introduced in 2007, and is described in section 2.6.3.

The profession and affiliation arguments must be used after the last name. The value is restricted to what is defined by the configuration file. Example

\begin{catperso}{Ph. D. Students}
\pers{Jean}{Dupond}{Scientist}{Inria}
\pers{Jean}{Dupont}{Assistant}{Cnrs}[][yes]
\pers{Jean}{Durand}{Technical}{University}[][]
\pers{Jean}{Dumat}{StudentIntern}{Other}[bla bla ][no]
\pers{Jean}{Durant}{PHD}{ForeignUniversity}[with a T]
\pers{Jean}{Dumas}{PostDoc}{Public}[with a S][scheduled november 2007]
\pers{Jean}{Dumont}{ Other }{Other}[bla bla ][no]
\end{catperso}

2.6.3 The 2007 changes

Topics have become obsolescent. This means that Tralics recognises the syntax, but ignores all values. A new feature has been added: the start of the document optionally contains a line of the form \TeamHasHdr{yes}. A true value means: at least one staff member has a Hdr (see discussion about the \pers command). This feature has been removed in 2008.

The following three lines are equivalent; they say that the team is located in both Rocquencourt and Sophia. Recall that UR stands for Unité de Recherche (Research Unit), and this is nowadays called Research Center.

Since 2007 you must indicate, for every staff member, its localisation (Rocquencourt or Sophia, in the example above). This is done by adding an optional argument to the \pers command. Of course, the optional argument is required only if the RC list has more than one element. Example

\begin{catperso}{Team Leader}
\pers{Laurent}{Baratchart}[Sophia]{Chercheur}{INRIA}[DR Inria][Habilite]
\end{catperso}

In the example that follows, the equals sign says that Sophia becomes the default value (so that there is no need to repeat it).

\begin{catperso}{Reserch scientists (external)}
  \pers{Jean}{Louchet}[=Sophia]{Chercheur}{INRIA}[CR]
  \pers{Jean-Marie}{Rocchisani}{Chercheur}{UnivFr}[Université Paris XIII]
\end{catperso}

2.6.4 The 2008 changes

Before 2008, the first section consisted in a module consisting of a sequence of catperso environments. Such an environment takes one argument, a category of people. As the examples show, the values are very diverse (compare Head of project team with Team leader), so there was an attempt to limit the values to those defined in the configuration file, before the replacement by a unique environment composition, outside any module.

Remember that the \pers command comes in two versions \persA (simple) and \persB (complicated). These are commands are defined in the ra.plt package file, included from the class file (for instance ra2009.clt) with some options. You should use the \pers command only in two cases: inside a participant environment (and then it is \persA), or in the first module. If this one is defined by composition (2008 and later), then \pers is made undefined outside participant and composition. It is \persA if the package is loaded with option old (2005 and before) and \persB otherwise (2006 and later). Example for 2008:

\begin{composition}
  \pers{Christine}{Eisenbeis}{Chercheur}{INRIA}[Team Leader (CR) Inria][Habilite]
  \pers{Nathalie}{Gaudechoux}{Assistant}{INRIA}[Secretary (SAR) Inria]
  \pers{François}{Thomasset}{Chercheur}{INRIA}[Research Director (DR) Inria]
  \pers{Jean}{Louchet}{Chercheur}{AutreEtablissementPublic}[Ing. en chef Armement (CR)]
  \pers{Jean-Marie}{Rocchisani}{Chercheur}{UnivFr}[Université Paris XIII]
  \pers{Moussa}{Lo}{Visiteur}{UnivEtrangere}[AUF Grant/ Gaston Berger University, 
    Saint-Louis, Senegal, from March 1st till August 31 2008]
\end{composition}

2.6.5 The 2013 changes

The affiliation part of the \pers command has been removed (and the command is defined as \persC). Example (with a CR part).

\begin{composition}
  \pers{Tim}{Berners-Lee}[=Grenoble]{Chercheur}[Team leader, Senior Researcher Inria][Habilite]
  \pers{Ada}{Lovelace}{Assistant}[shared with another team]
  \pers{Richard}{Stallman}[Saclay]{Chercheur}[Senior Researcher Inria]
  \pers{Linus}{Torvalds}{Chercheur}[Ing. en chef Armement]
  \pers{Marc}{Andreessen}{Enseignant}[Professor, Université Paris 13]
  \pers{Donald E.}{Knuth}{Visiteur}[AUF Grant/ Gaston Berger University, Saint-Louis, Senegal, from March 1st till August 31]
  \pers{François}{Gernelle}{Technique}[IGHCA, Unicode team]
\end{composition}

2.7 References

Our example contains line 92 a \label that is referenced at line 329. This label is associated to a section (starting at line line 90). You can also associate a label with an equation (line 141) or a figure (line 304) (note that the label has nothing to do with the \caption that follows; references to the figure will be correct after translation, but incorrect if LaTeX is called directly).

You can reference a module via the \moduleref[y]{p}{s}{name}. Since 2006, the optional argument has been removed, and the command is equivalent to \ref{mod:name} (if the last argument is non-empty, to \ref{section:s} otherwise). The original idea was to refer to the module name in section s of the activity report of team p for year y (this worked in principle for the HTML version of the RA as the name of the HTML page depended only on this quantities; it never worked in the PDF version). So the year has to be the current year, the team has to be the current team and the section could be deduced from the module name, whence the current implementation. There is an example line 330 and some more at line 410 (if the module name is empty, the link points to the section).

In the bibliography, you can add a url field, like this one. We provide the \rrrt command: its argument is the number of a Inria Research report. Example here.

It is also possible to give the doi: in this example, indicating the doi= is the same as the xxurl, without the xx.

2.8 Bibliography

2.8.1 Bibliography: the raweb case

A reference from the main file miaou2003.bib appears in the bibliography if it is cited via \cite (there is an example line 122) or via \nocite (example line 246) or if the \nocite{*} has been issued (example line 20). The example file contains an instance of each of the standard bibtex entries, with all the required and optional fields, named std1 to std13, with two famous authors. The main bibliography should contain only references of the Team in the current year. Since 2013, this file is automatically generated.

Entries from miaou_refer2003.bib can be referred to via \cite or \refercite, there is an implicit \nocite{*}, so that the whole database is included. The miaou_refer2003.bib should contain the ten most important published papers (or books) of the team.

Reference to other bibliography entries (not from the team, not from the current year, or not one of the most important publications of the team) can be made, provided that the entry is in miaou_foot2003.bib, and you use the command \footcite (there is an example line 122).

2.8.2 Bibliography: the general case

Normally, you say \cite{foo,bar}, and this makes two references to some bibliographic entries, defined by \bibitem{foo} and \bibitem{bar}. Very often, an external program, bibtex, is used to compute the list of these \bibitem and their content, using the argument of the \bibliography command as the list of the database files to look at. The output of bibtex is put in the file miaou2003.bbl, it contains essentially one thebibliography environment (more than one in the raweb case), and lots of \bibitem{foo} commands. The content of these is defined by the current bibliography style, the value of the argument of the \bibliographystyle command.

The default behavior of Tralics is not to call bibtex, but to compute and translate an intermediate file, say miaou2003_.bbl (note the underscore), that is equivalent to the miaou2003.bbl file produced by bibtex. It contains no thebibliography environment, but a lot of \citation commands (that are in reality environments, since they are explicitly terminated by an \endcitation command). This file is translated (in case of errors while translating the bibliography, line numbers refer to this file). An example is given under \citation.

The result is independent of any bibliographystyle. It contains commands of the form \cititem{btitle}{title of the book}. If the command \cititem-btitle is defined, it will be called with title of the book as argument. It can also contain commands as \bauteurs and \beditors, that take as argument a list of \bpers commands. All these commands can be redefined, they are independent of commands used elsewhere.

The bibliography is translated at the end of the run, when the list of all citations is found. The result is a <biblio> element (the name can be changed, via the configuration file, using something like xml_biblio = "Biblio"). This element is inserted in the XML tree at the end. If you use the \bibliography command, the first occurrence of it defines the location (bibtex complains if more than one \bibliography is issued, but Tralics is happy with more than one). You can also use \insertbibliohere, this command has precedence over everything else.

Assume that the configuration file contains a line with bibtex_fields = "firstpage lastpage". The effect of this line is to tell Tralics to read also the fields firstpage and lastpage and to include them in the bbl file as \cititem{firstpage}{50}. If the configuration file contains also bibtex_extension = "foo bar" then entry types foo and bar are recognised, together with the standard types.

2.8.3 Bibliography: extended syntax

The mechanism explained in §2.8.1 above works by extending the syntax of the \cite command. It takes three arguments type (optional), prenote (optional) and keys (a comma separated list of keys) for instance \cite[foo][bar]{gee1, gee2}. If only one optional argument is given, it is prenote. The translation is a sequence of <cit><ref> </ref></cit> elements, one for each key.

The three commands \footcite, \yearcite and \refercite do not read a type but assume it is, respectively, foot, year and refer. In the case of \footcite, the first <cite> is preceded by the value of \footcitepre (that does nothing by default). See also \yearcite, \refercite and \footcite. The commands \yearcite and \refercite were introduced in version 2.8 of Tralics, while \footcite is inspired from the footcite package by Eric Domenjoud. The command \nocite is similar, but it takes no prenote. Its translation is empty. A special key is *; in this case a global variable is set (meaning that the whole bibliography data base should be included). The command \natcite command takes three optional arguments nat-type, prenote, postnote. Translation is one <Cit> element, containing one <ref> per key.

If type is year, it will be replaced by an empty value; if type is refer and DRY (see below) is false, it will be replaced as well. An auxiliary command is then applied to each key. For instance \cite[year][aa]{r1,r2} is converted into \cite@one {}{r1}{aa}\citepunct \cite@one {}{r2}{} (the first empty argument is the converted type type), and \footcite[bar]{gee1, gee2} is converted into \footcitepre \cite@one {foot}{gee1}{bar}\footcitesep \cite@one {foot}{gee2}{} (the first command, by default does nothing). Finally, \natcite[aa][bb][cc]{r1,r2} is converted to \NAT@open bb \cite@simple {r1}\NAT@sep \cite@simple {r2}\NAT@cmt cc\NAT@close \endnatcite; this uses some commands defined by the natbib.plt package. Translation is <Cit type='aa'>(bb <ref target='bid0'/>;<ref target='bid1'/>, cc)</Cit>. The purpose of the \endnat token is to finish the <Cit> element. Translation of \cite{xx} is <cit><ref target='bid8'/></cit>.

Let's explain the commands \cite@simp{key} and \cite@one{type}{val}{key}. They first generate a cite key, formed of the type, the string cite: and the key, for instance footcite:gee2. A unique identifier (for instance bid1) is associated to the key. If the identifier does not exists, the reference is marked to be solved; it is an error if \cite is called after Tralics has started translating the bibliography (for instance, you cannot use the command in a bibliography file). In the case of \nocite no further action is taken; otherwise a reference is created, of the form <ref target='bid1'/>. In the case of \cite@simp, this element is inserted in the XML tree, and no further action is taken. Otherwise, the translation of the second argument becomes the content of the element. A new paragraph is started if necessary, and a <cit> element is inserted in the current XMl tree; its value is the <ref> element. It may have three attribute: rend='type' (where the value of the attribute is the type), type='w' (in case \def\cite@@type{w} has been executed), and prenote='xx' (in case \def\cite@prenote{xx} has been executed).

One task of Tralics is to solve the citations, this means, for every cite key, for instance footcite:gee2 with unique id bid1, there is a unique element whose id attribute is bid1. There are different ways, see below. After the whole document is translated, Tralics checks if there are unsolved citations. If so, it translates the bibliography. After that, for unsolved citations, an error is signaled of the form Error signaled while handling entry footcite:gee2 undefined reference. The \bibliography command specifies the list of data files to consider. In the case of torture+foot (assuming there is no file torture+foo.bib) the file torture.bib is read, and footcite:gee2 is solved by a reference whose key is gee2. In the case of the raweb, for instance for miaou2006, there are three bibliography files miaou2006.bib (should contain all references of the year 2006 of the team), miaou_refer2006.bib (contains major publications of the team in recent years) and miaou_foot2006.bib (for everything else). These file solve entries of type year, refer and foot respectively. It may happen that Tralics moves an entry from one category to the other, withe a message of the type entry moved from refer to year for different reasons.

There is a special hack, DRY (for distinguish-refer-year) introduced in version 2.8. If Tralics is called with the switch -distinguish_refer_in_rabib=false, then DRY mode is set to false (see details in Options of the program). It is true by default. If DRY is true, you can put the same entry (with the same key, and the same value) in both files miaou2006.bib and miaou_refer2006.bib. This is however not recommended.

2.8.4 Bibliography: more hacks

There are different ways to put solve an entry. For instance \xbox {foo} {\XMLsolvecite [] [foot] {toto} {text}} (see \XMLsolvecite) solves the entry associated to \footcite{toto}. You can also use \bibitem[xx]{toto] (see \bibitem), that solves the entry with a <citation> element. You can ask Tralics to generate the bibliography, or use an external program that get all data from one or more bibliography databases. Note: you must use the -shell-escape argument of Tralics in order to execute an external program.

Tralics interprets the argument of the \bibliographystyle command as follows. If it is bibtex:foo, this means that bibtex testb is executed; if it is program:cat, this means that the program cat testb.aux will be executed. In all other cases, it defines the style to be used (default is plain). This command can be used more then once: first to define the style, second to define the command; note that bibtex:foo sets the style to foo, and bibtex: uses the defined style. We assume here that testb is the name of the document to translate. Example

 
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\AtEndDocument{\bibitem{unused}Hey}
\bibliography{torture}
\bibliographystyle{bibtex:}
\cite{poussin,cruz,many,strange,unused}
\end{document}

If an external program is given, a minimal auxiliary file is created, named, testb.aux, containing

It is assumed that the external program generates a file named testb.bbl; this is obviously not the case for cat testb.aux. This file is loaded (if possible) and executed. It is assumed that translating this file will solve all entries, but no further checks are done.

If no external program is given, Tralics will read the database files, and construct a bbl file (named testb_.bbl) and executes it. Given the following command \newcommand \usebib[2] {\bibliography{#1#2, #1_foot#2+foot, #1_refer#2+refer}}, you can say \usebib{miaou}{2003}, if you want to mimic what Tralics does for the RA2003. (note: only suffixes year, foot and refer are considered; this could be generalized).

2.8.5 Bibliography: reducing entropy

A new feature was introduced in 2006, it allows the use of a single data base instead of three different ones. This means that you can provide miaou_all2006.bib instead of three files. This feature is incompatible with the idea that one of the three files is automatically generated. An entry in the file has type year, foot or refer, if it is cited by \yearcite, \footcite or \refercite or \nocite with the corresponding flag.

When Tralics reads the file miaou_all2006.bib, and sees an entry, say `Knuth', it considers it as solving \cite{Knuth}, \refercite{Knuth} or \footcite{Knuth}. In general, a single alternative is chosen, but as explained above, it is allowed to use both \cite{Knuth} and \refercite{Knuth}.

What happens if you say \nocite{*}? One possibility would be to insert the whole data base thrice (as foot, refer and year), a second possibility would be to insert it once, but not as year, neither as refer. Hence, the only logical solution: the behavior is the same as before version 2.9.3. If you say \nocite{*}, all entries from miaou2006.bib are included, by defaut all entries from miaou_refer2006.bib are included. As a consequence, an entry from miaou_foot2006.bib or miaou_all2006.bib is included only if explicitly cited. This can be done via \nocite[foot]{Knuth} or \nocite[refer]{Knuth} if the reference should have type `foot' or `refer'.

Important note. Assume that you say \cite{Knuth} and \footcite{knuth}, but no other variants like KNUTH of KNuth, etc. It is possible to have two files miaou2006.bib and miaou_foot2006.bib with the entry `Knuth'. When the second data base is read, then `Knuth' will solve `knuth' (assuming that the data base does not contain any variants like KNUTH, etc.) However, if you merge these two files in a single one, you will be in trouble: `Knuth' will solve \cite{Knuth}, and no tentative is made for variants; in this case the data base must contain `knuth' that solves \footcite{knuth}.

3. Running the programs

Options to the Tralics program can be found on a separate page. Some of them have been removed in 2008, there description can be found here, where we explain the different strategies that could be used to produce the Raweb before 2008.

4. The auxiliary perl script

5. The fotex.cfg file

6. The raweb-cfg.sty file

The pdf files of the activity report are produced via a Makefile as follows. The TeX source is converted by Tralics into some XML file; an XML processor converts this into another XML file, conforming to the new DTD (whatever this means). Another XML processor converts the result into XSL/FO format, which is interpreted by TeX via the tools of S. Rahtz and D. Carlisle. Some patches to these files are required, they are described here.