Method Collection Tabular Format Specification

Central Council Methods Committee

Method Collection Tabular Format Specification

1. Introduction: This is an informal description of the tabular format used in the Central Council machine-readable collections of Plain, Surprise, Delight, Treble Bob, Alliance, Treble Place and Hybrid methods, principles, differentials and blocks.
1.1 Scope: This specification covers the collections available on the World Wide Web.
1.2 Syntax: The syntax used in the figures is described in Appendix A.
1.3 Character set: The collections are encoded in the ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange (ISO/IEC 646:1991). The collections in zipped form on the World Wide Web use PC Carriage Return / Line Feed (“0d0a”x) line delimiters. The collections in text form on the World Wide Web use Unix New Line (“0a”x) line delimiters.
1.4 Organisation: Each collection comprises an introduction, tables and an alphabetical index.
2. Introduction: This is a free-format file which includes the copyright notice, a list of the constituent files, the scope of the collection, historical notes and conventions.
3. Table files: The first line of each file identifies the file as a production of the Central Council and shows the month of publication. Each file contains one or more method tables each preceded by heading and sub-heading lines.
3.1 Table heading: The heading lines identify the class, stage and hunt work of the methods in the table (figure 1). For Little, Alliance, Treble Place and Hybrid methods and for Treble Dodging methods with the treble dodging more than once in each position-pair, the hunt work is shown in parentheses. For Treble Place and Hybrid methods and for Alliance methods with the treble’s path not formed just from plain hunting and treble dodging, the work appears on the next line with the cardinal positions of the hunt bell above the corresponding place notation elements in the “Notation” and “hl” columns of the table. Each heading line starts with a capital letter.
3.2 Table sub-heading: The sub-heading line identifies the position, width and label of each column of the table (figure 2).
3.3 Table body: The rows are arranged in place notation order.
3.4 General columns: With the exception of the first three or four columns (“No.”, “Name”, “Notation” and “hl”) to which some special rules apply, each column starts in the same position as its label on the sub-heading line and, with the exception of the last column which extends to the end of the line, extends to two positions before the label of the next column. The position between the columns contain spaces.
3.5 Special columns: The “No.” column starts in first position although its label on the sub-heading line is in the second position. To accommodate arbitrarily long method names, if either the last position of the “Name” column or the position between the “Name” and “Notation” columns in a row does not contain spaces then the method name continues to the end of the line and “Notation” and all subsequent columns appear on the next line. So that the “Notation” and “hl” columns taken together may provide the notation of a method with a symmetrical place notation up to and including the half lead, the position between these two columns may contain a full stop instead of a space.
3.6 Column alignment and format: Note columns are left-aligned unless otherwise stated.; Right-aligned, leading zero suppressed index number which is only significant within the particular edition of the particular collections.; Method name and selected terms. The selected terms are “Differential” for differential hunters and the classes Bob, Little, Place and Slow Course. Other classes are specified in the table headings.; For palindromic methods the place notation is given up to and excluding the half lead place. For palindromic methods the entire place notation is given. The symbols in figure 3 are used for bell numbers above nine. Note that the letter I is not used because of its potential confusion with the number one.; The notation of the half lead for methods with symmetric place notations.; The notation of the lead end for methods with Plain Bob type symmetric place notations.; For methods with Plain Bob lead heads, the lead head produced is given by a code from figure 4. Lead heads for single-hunt methods are in the top left and bottom right hand sections, codes a - f and p - q are for seconds place lead ends and codes g - m and r - s for lead ends with no internal places. Lead heads for double-hunt methods are in the top right and bottom left hand sections. For methods with non-Plain Bob lead heads the actual lead head is given.; The letter(s) give details of the internal falseness, with the tenors together, of that method. The notation is that used by Roger Baldwin in his classification of the 120 false course-heads, slightly extended for Royal and Maximus methods. In this classification, the groups of false course-heads, tenors together members only, are shown in figure 5.; Indicates how the fch groups are to be interpreted for a method with non-Plain Bob lead-heads by listing the three bells affected by a bob in the plain course. This is sufficient to indicate which fch group should be designated as group U, and once that is done the assignment of the other groups can be done to match.; Date of first peal on tower bells of the form DD.MM.YYYY or “Spliced” right-aligned if first rung in Spliced or “Touch” right-aligned if first rung in a touch. DD and MM are leading zero suppressed.; Location of first peal on tower bells.; Society for which first peal on tower bells rung.; Date of first peal on handbells of the form DD.MM.YYYY or “Spliced” right-aligned if first rung in Spliced or “Touch” right-aligned if first rung in a touch and table has no Tower bells column. DD and MM are leading zero suppressed.; Location of first peal on handbells.; Society for which first peal on handbells rung.; Right-aligned reference number used in earlier Central Council collections as described in the Introduction.; Right-aligned reference number used in the Collection of Plain Minor Methods.; Right-aligned reference number used in Treble Dodging Minor Methods.; The code by which the 360 Plain Triples methods rung by the Manchester University Guild were published.; References to pages in The Ringing World of the form year/page or, for the years 1911 to 1916, volume/page preceded by the letter V, space separated. The century is omitted from years less than a hundred years ago.; For non-palindromic methods indicates whether the method has double or rotational symmetry.; Notes.
4. Alphabetical index: The first line identifies the file as a production of the Central Council and shows the month of publication. There are “Name”, “Stage” and “No.” columns. The rows are arranged in alphabetical order of method name. If the method name is too long to fit in the “Name” column it continues to the end of the line and the “Stage” and “No.” columns appear on the next line.

Figure 3
ten	0
eleven	E
twelve	T
thirteen	A
fourteen	B
fifteen	C
sixteen	D
seventeen	F
eighteen	G
nineteen	H
twenty	J
twenty-one	K
twenty-two	L

Figure 4
	Minimus	Minor	Major	Royal	Maximus			Doubles	Triples	Caters	Cinques
a	1342	135264	13527486	1352749608	13527496E8T0	g	a	12534	1253746	125374968	12537496E80	g
b	-	156342	15738264	1573920486	157392E4T608	h	b	-	1275634	127593846	127593E4068	h
c	-	-	17856342	*	1795E3T20486	j	c	-	-	129785634	*	j
c1	-	-	-	1907856342	19E7T5038264	j1	c1	-	-	-	12E90785634	j1
c2	-	-	-	-	1ET907856342	j2
d2	-	-	-	-	1T0E89674523	k2
d1	-	-	-	1089674523	108T6E492735	k1	d1	-	-	-	120E8967453	k1
d	-	-	18674523	*	18604T2E3957	k	d	-	-	128967453	*	k
e	-	164523	16482735	1648203957	1648203T5E79	l	e	-	1267453	126849375	1268403E597	l
f	1423	142635	14263857	1426385079	142638507T9E	m	f	12453	1246375	124638597	124638507E9	m

p	-	125364	12537486	1253749608	12537496E8T0	r	p	13524	1352746	135274968	13527496E80	r
p1	-	-	-	1297058364	1297E5T30486	r1	p1	-	-	179583624	1795E302846	r1
q1	-	-	-	1280694735	12806T4E3957	s1	q1	-	-	186947253	18604E29375	s1
q	-	124635	12463857	1246385079	124638507T9E	s	q	14253	1426375	142638597	142638507E9	s

Figure 5
B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	K	L	M	N
24365	25634	32546 46253	32465 43265	32654 45236	56423 63542	53462 63425	54632 65324	53624 65432	26543 ) L1 36245 ) L2 42563 )	23564 23645 25463 26435	34562 46325 54263 62345
23654 25436 32456 43256	34265 42365	24356 53426 63452	24635 25364	24563 26345	-	36542 46523 56243 62543	-	34526 ) K1 46352 ) 52346 ) 64253 ) 54362 ) K2 64325 )	-	-	35462 ) N1 43625 ) 53264 ) 62435 ) 35624 ) N2 45632 ) 52634 ) 65234 )
O	P	R	S	T	U	a	b	c	d	e	f
36524 46532 52643 65243	54326 ) P1 64352 ) 56342 ) P2 64523 )	35642 45623 56234 62534	34625 45362 52364 64235	24536 24653 25346 26354 36452 43526 53246 62453	34256 ) U1 35426 ) 42356 ) 43652 ) 52436 ) 63254 ) 35264 ) U2 42635 )	-	-	-	-	-	-
53642 56432 63524 65423	-	-	-	32564 32645 45263 46235	-	23465 ) a1 23546 ) a2 26453 )	25643 26534	35246 36254 42536 42653	34652 45326 54236 62354	36425 43562 52463 63245	54623 56324 64532 65342

Figure 6
X	Y (gamma)
257643 374652 627534 723645 265743 437625 632754 724653 276354 457632 635742 736425 276435 475623 657423 746532 346752 526734 672453 762354 367245 546723 673245 763542 367524 564732 675324 764235	267534 364752 625743 724635 275643 367542 635724 726534 276453 376425 637425 734652 675423 764532
Z (delta)
457623 546732 672354 763245

The syntax used in the figures is described using the following structure: The syntax diagrams should be read from left to right and from top to bottom, following the path of the line. The following table shows the meaning of symbols which can appear at the beginnings or ends of syntax diagram lines.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| SYMBOL        | INDICATES                                                    |
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
| >>---         | the syntax diagram starts here                               |
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
| --->          | the syntax diagram is continued on the next line             |
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
| >---          | the syntax diagram is continued from the previous line       |
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
| ---><         | the syntax diagram ends here                                 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Items that always occur appear on the horizontal line (the main path).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
| >>-------------required-item---------------------------------------------->< |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Items that may occur appear below the main path.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
| >>------------------------------------------------------------------------>< |
|                |               |                                             |
|                --optional-item--                                             |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If one of several items may occur, they appear vertically, in a stack. If one of the items will always occur, one item of the stack appears on the main path.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
| >>---------------choice 1------------------------------------------------->< |
|                |              |                                              |
|                --choice 2------                                              |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If none of the items may occur, the entire stack appears below the main path.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
| >>------------------------------------------------------------------------>< |
|                |                   |                                         |
|                |-optional-choice 1-|                                         |
|                |                   |                                         |
|                --optional-choice 2--                                         |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A default, which is implied if no other choice occurs, appears above the main path.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
|                --default-item--                                              |
|                |              |                                              |
| >>-------------+--------------+------------------------------------------->< |
|                |              |                                              |
|                |-choice 1-----|                                              |
|                |              |                                              |
|                --choice 2------                                              |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An arrow returning to the left above the main line is a repeat arrow, and it indicates an item that may be repeated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
|                -------------------                                           |
|                |                 |                                           |
|                V                 |                                           |
| >>---------------repeatable-item------------------------------------------>< |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there is a comma in the path of the repeat arrow, the items in a series are separated by commas.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
|                -------- , --------                                           |
|                |                 |                                           |
|                V                 |                                           |
| >>---------------repeatable-item------------------------------------------>< |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A syntax fragment is delimited in the main syntax diagram by a set of vertical lines. The corresponding meaning of the fragment begins with the name of the fragment followed by the syntax, which starts and ends with a vertical line.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                              |
| >>-------------| fragment |----------------------------------------------->< |
|                                                                              |
| FRAGMENT:                                                                    |
| |--syntax items------------------------------------------------------------| |
|                                                                              |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This page is maintained by Tony Smith 15th May 2020