Configuring Alexandria

Alexandria is a text repository and database that supports Text As Graph (TAG). We’ll use it in the Institute to gain perspective on modeling by exploring non-XML structured text representations.

What is Alexandria?

Introduction

Briefly put, Alexandria is a text repository system in which you can store and edit documents. It is the reference implementation of TAG, a flexible graph data model for text. Here, the term “reference implementation” means that Alexandria implements all the properties of the TAG model. So, by working with Alexandria you’ll learn more about TAG. And vice versa, if you want to experiment with the flexibilities of the TAG model Alexandria is where you start. We already talked about TAG and its modeling potential; now it’s time to experiment with it.

You’ll quickly find out that Alexandria is not just any text repository. It builds on the idea that a text can be studied from various perspectives. For example, you can model a text according to a textual perspective or a documentary perspective; you can focus on adding linguistic annotations of a text, or rather information about structure of its verses. In Alexandria, you can store those different perspectives on the same text. What is more, Alexandria is build along the principles of a distributed architecture. It is a command line tool and it can be integrated in your own editor of choice.

By bringing together a wide range of information about a text in a structural and distributed way, Alexandria facilitates the exchange and reuse of scholarly data. In short, Alexandria is a powerful modeling instrument for digital textual research.

Why should I use it?

If you enjoy experimenting with data models and advanced text analysis, Alexandria is the tool for you. If you’re used to working with XML, it is highly enlightening to work with a data model in which you can easily model overlapping structures, discontinuous elements, and nonlinear text without having to resort to workarounds.

Can I use it?

«««< HEAD Yes, you can. Below you’ll find the installation instructions. We also created a tutorial in the form of a Jupyter Notebook. The notebook contains blocks of text and small snippets of code: commands that you give to your version of Alexandria. You can run these commands from within the notebook. The notebook, in other words, is a secure environment for you to play around with and get to know Alexandria. The tutorial explains in detail how Alexandria works and what you need to oprate it.

Installation

1. Download

An up-to-date version of Alexandria can be downloaded from https://cdn.huygens.knaw.nl/alexandria/alexandria-app.zip

2. Unpack the zip

Unpack the zip to a new directory of your choice. Remember the path to that directory. Now you have to make sure that your machine can always find the bin directory that contains the Alexandria code when you call it. You have three options:

2a. Create a permanent alias in your .bash_profile

Open your .bash_profile. If you’re on a Unix machine, you can type open -a "Sublime Text" ~/.bash_profile in your terminal window. This will open your bash_profile in the Sublime Text editor (of course you can use an editor of your choice).

You can create an alias for Alexandria by writing alias alexandria="<path to alexandria>". For instance, your alias could say alias alexandria="/Users/alexandria-markup-server/bin/alexandria". Save and close your bash_profile. Before the alias works, you have to resource the bash_profile: type source ~/.bash_profile in your terminal.

2b. Add the directory your PATH

In your terminal window, type:

export PATH=$PATH:<path to alexandria>

For example:

export PATH=$PATH:/Users/alexandria-markup-server/bin/alexandria

if that’s where you’ve stored Alexandria. You can check if it works by typing

echo $PATH

in your terminal window. It should return something like the following, with the path to Alexandria directory newly added at the end:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/alexandria-markup-server/bin/alexandria

2c. Create a softlink

If you don’t like to change your path, you can create a softlink.

A soft link (also known as a symbolic link or symlink) consists of a special type of file that serves as a reference to another file or directory. You can create them on your command line:

$ ln -s {source-filename} {symbolic-filename}

For example:

$ ln -s /Users/alexandria-markup-server/bin/alexandria /usr/local/bin/alexandria

Verify if it works by running

$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/alexandria

Your output will look something like:

lrwxr-xr-x  1 veryv  wheel  5 Mar  7 22:01 alexandria -> Users/alexandria-markup-server/bin/alexandria

Notice the -> that indicates the link between the link name and the file.

Working with Alexandria

Keep in mind that both the TAG data model and the Alexandria implementation are under development. This means that by using Alexandria you will make a valuable contribution to the development process. We therefore encourage you to try it out and share your thoughts.

If the links in this file appear to be broken, we advise you to navigate to the GitHub repository of the project and download the latest version there. In this repository you also find detailed installation instructions.