Standard Generalised Markup Language SGML

All of the legislation stored on the Tasmanian Legislation Database is captured in SGML, which underpins every part of the EnAct system.

The Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) is an international standard (ISO8879) for the descriptive mark-up of documents. Storing our legislation in SGML provides a number of benefits:

Stability: ISO standards do not change like proprietary standards. Storing information in SGML means that the longevity of the information asset is assured.

Independence: We have full control over our information asset for the future.

Publishing: Legislation can be published in a variety of different formats in both paper and electronic form from a single data source.

Processing: The nature of SGML allows complex processing to be applied to the data. It is this feature that enabled the automatic consolidation feature to be developed in the EnAct system.