Purpose

The tbx Ruby gem allows you to parse, manipulate, and serialize TBX (TermBase eXchange) documents as defined by ISO 30042:2019.

TBX is an international standard for representing structured terminological data in XML. This library provides complete coverage of the TBX core structure, including:

• DCA (Data Category Archive) style — standard TBX element names with type attributes (e.g., <descrip type="definition">)

• DCT (Data Category Tagging) style — module-namespaced elements (e.g., <basic:definition>) (planned)

The library is built on lutaml-model for declarative XML serialization.

Note	This is a work-in-progress.

Installation

Install the gem and add to the application’s Gemfile:

bundle add tbx

Or install directly:

gem install tbx

Usage

require 'tbx'

# Parse a TBX file
doc = IO.read('spec/fixtures/TBX_test_files/min_good.tbx')
tbx = Tbx::Document.from_xml(doc)

# Access document metadata
tbx.type          # => "TBX-Min"
tbx.style         # => "dca"
tbx.lang          # => "en"

# Access header
tbx.tbx_header.file_desc.source_desc.p.first.content.join
# => "TBX file, created via MultiTerm Export"

# Navigate concept entries
entry = tbx.text.body.concept_entry.first
entry.id                           # => "c1"
entry.lang_sec.first.lang          # => "en"
entry.lang_sec.first.term_sec.first.term.content.join
# => "open cluster"

# Serialize back to XML
puts tbx.to_xml(pretty: true)
# => round-tripped TBX document

API

# Parse
tbx = Tbx::Document.from_xml(xml_string)

# Access elements
tbx.tbx_header.file_desc.source_desc
tbx.text.body.concept_entry.each do |entry|
  entry.lang_sec.each do |lang|
    lang.term_sec.each do |ts|
      puts ts.term.content.join
    end
  end
end

# Serialize back
tbx.to_xml
tbx.to_xml(pretty: true, declaration: true, encoding: "utf-8")

Supported TBX elements

Root and structure

Document (<tbx>), TbxHeader, TextElement, Body, Back

Terminological entries

ConceptEntry, LangSec, TermSec, Term

Data categories

Admin, AdminGrp, AdminNote, Descrip, DescripGrp, DescripNote, TermNote, TermNoteGrp, Ref, Xref

Transactions

Transac, TransacGrp, TransacNote, DateElement

Header

FileDesc, PublicationStmt, TitleStmt, SourceDesc, EncodingDesc, RevisionDesc, Change

Reference objects

RefObjectSec, RefObject, ItemSet, ItemGrp, Item

Inline

Hi, Foreign, Ec, Sc, Ph, Note, P, Title

Test data

Test fixtures are sourced from the TBX_test_files repository maintained by LTAC Global, and from the TBX-Basic dialect schemas included in reference-docs/.

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run bundle exec rake to run the tests and linter.

# Run tests
bundle exec rspec

# Run linter
bundle exec rubocop

# Run both (default task)
bundle exec rake

Credits

This gem is developed, maintained and funded by Ribose Inc.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the 2-Clause BSD License.