What free Windows text editor should I use to look at MIF files?

[Fred Ridder]

The article you cite is about the *Model* Interchange Format that relates to HL7, which Wikipedia tells me is a "set of international standards for transfer of clinical and administrative data between Hospital information systems". It has nothing whatsoever to do with the *Maker* Interchange Format that is used in FrameMaker other than the same acronym. MIF ≠ MIF in this case.

And as I said, the highlighting you see may be useful, but it is an accidental artifact of MIF's use of angle brackets as delimiters.

-Fred Ridder

Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 18:50:57 +0300
From: shmuelw1 at gmail.com
To: docudoc at hotmail.com; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: What free Windows text editor should I use to look at MIF files?


  
    
  
  
    When I said that MIF was based on XML, I was taking that from this
    page:

    http://www.ringholm.com/docs/03060_en_HL7_MIF.htm

    "The Model Interchange Format (MIF) is a set of XML
      formats used to support the storage and exchange of HL7 version 3
      artefacts as part of the HL7 Development Framework."

    I'm really not an expert on MIF or XML, but the syntax highlighting
    in SciTE when I selected XML was much better than no highlighting at
    all. 

    

    --

    Shmuel Wolfson

    Technical Writer

    052-763-7133

    

    

    On 05-Oct-14 5:06 PM, Fred Ridder
      wrote:

    
    
      
      Sorry, Shmuel, but this is incorrect on a couple of
        levels. 

        

        First of all, it's simply impossible for MIF to have been *based
        on* XML. MIF has existed since the very beginning of FrameMaker
        in 1986. XML, on the other hand, was initially defined (XML 1.0
        first edition) in 1998, 12 years after MIF was first included in
        a released product.  

        

        Second, the syntax may look similar, but the similarity extends
        no deeper than the use of angle brackets as delimiters. 

        In MIF, both the property/parameter name and its value or values
        (which may themselves be bracket-delimited properties) are
        contained inside the brackets. The end of each element is marked
        by a simple right angle-bracket. This is not a problem in
        simple, single-value elements that begin and end on the same
        line; but to accommodate multi-line elements have multiple
        properties nested within it, it is necessary to include a
        commentary string that identifies what element is closed by the
        immediately preceding bracket since all brackets have identical
        appearance. 

        In XML, on the other hand, the angle brackets only contain the
        name of the element type. The content (e.g., the value of the
        property or parameter) is *outside* the angle brackets,
        delimited by a bracketed start tag (e.g., <elementX>) and
        a corresponding explicitly named end tag (e.g.,
        </elementX>) .

        

        When your text editor highlights it as XML, it would highlight
        the opening angle bracket and parameter name string as if they
        were XML start tags. But the parameter values would not be
        highlighted because they appear in a location where XML does not
        allow text. Depending on your editor, numerical parameter values
        might be highlighted just because they are numerical. This
        degree of highlighting might be useful, but it is essentially
        accidental rather than by design.

        

        -Fred Ridder

        

        > From: shmuelw1 at gmail.com

          > To: framers at lists.frameusers.com

          > Subject: Re: What free Windows text editor should I use
          to look at MIF files?

          > 

          > MIF is based on XML, so select XML highlighting in the
          text editor. I 

          > just tried it in SciTE and it looks good after selecting
          XML. It may 

          > also work in NotePad++ but I didn't try it.

          > 

          > --

          > Shmuel Wolfson

          > Technical Writer

          > 052-763-7133

          

        
      
    
    
 		 	   		  
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