House to sweep floor with XML

The House of Representatives this week released drafts of 110 Extensible Markup Language document type definitions for all its legislative activities. The DTDs are in the public domain and cover categories ranging from bills and resolutions to deletions and anomalous document structures.No date has been set, however, for starting to format congressional materials in XML format, which would make searching and reusing the volumes of legislative output much easier. Current searches at are limited to bill numbers and key words.The congressional DTDs define the elements and relationships in what a legislative body produces, as distinct from, say, DTDs that already exist for the automotive, banking, telecommunications and other industries.Sample files of the draft congressional DTDs, viewable with Internet Explorer 5 or higher browser versions, appear at .