NAME

       Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard - citation parsing functionality

SYNOPSIS

         use Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard;
         # Parse a simple reference
         $parser = new Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard;
         $metadata = $parser->parse("M. Jewell (2004) Citation Parsing for Beginners. Journal of Madeup References 4(3).");
         print "The title of this article is ".$metadata->{atitle}."\n";

DESCRIPTION

       Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard uses a relatively simple template matching technique to
       extract metadata from citations.

       The Templates.pm module currently provides almost 400 templates, with more being added
       regularly, and the parser returns the metadata in a form that is easily massaged into
       OpenURLs (see the Biblio::OpenURL module for an even easier way).

METHODS

       $parser = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard->new()
           The new() method creates a new parser.

       $reliability = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard::get_reliability($template)
           The get_reliability method returns a value that acts as an indicator of the likelihood
           of a template matching correctly. Fields such as page ranges, URLs, etc, have high
           likelihoods (as they follow rigorous patterns), whereas titles, publications, etc have
           lower likelihoods.

           The method takes a template as a parameter, but you shouldn't really need to use this
           method much.

       $concreteness = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard::get_concreteness($template)
           As with the get_reliability() method, get_concreteness() takes a template as a
           parameter, and returns a numeric indicator. In this case, it is the number of non-
           field characters in the template.  The more 'concrete' a template, the higher the
           probability that it will match well. For example, '_PUBLICATION_ Vol. _VOLUME_' is a
           better match than '_PUBLICATION_ _VOLUME_', as _PUBLICATION_ is likely to subsume
           'Vol.' in the second case.

       $string = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard::strip_spaces(@strings)
           This is a helper function to remove spaces from all elements of an array.

       $templates = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard::get_templates()
           Returns the current template list from the Biblio::Citation::Parser::Templates module.
           Useful for giving status lists.

       @authors = Biblio::Citation::Parser::Standard::handle_authors($string)
           This (rather large) function handles the author fields of a reference.  It is not all-
           inclusive yet, but it is usably accurate. It can handle author lists that are
           separated by semicolons, commas, and a few other delimiters, as well as &, and, and
           'et al'.

           The method takes an author string as a parameter, and returns an array of extracted
           information in the format '{family => $family, given => $given}'.

       %metadata = $parser->xtract_metadata($reference)
           This is the key method in the Standard module, although it is not actually called
           directly by users (the 'parse' method provides a wrapper). It takes a reference, and
           returns a hashtable representing extracted metadata.

           A regular expression map is present in this method to transform '_AUFIRST_', '_ISSN_',
           etc, into expressions that should match them. The method then finds the template which
           best matches the reference, picking the result that has the highest concreteness and
           reliability (see above), and returns the fields in the hashtable. It also creates the
           marked-up version, that is useful for further formatting.

       $metadata = $parser->parse($reference);
           This method provides a wrapper to the extract_metadata function. Simply pass a
           reference string, and a metadata hash is returned.

NOTES

       The parser provided should not be seen as exhaustive. As new techniques are implemented,
       further modules will be released.

AUTHOR

       Mike Jewell <moj@ecs.soton.ac.uk>