Draft CBL format

Example.cbl

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ReadingList xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <Name>Example Reading list</Name>
  <Books>
    <Book Series="Awesome Name" Number="24" Volume="2200" Year="2200"> 
      <IssueID>45678987654</IssueID>
      <ComicID>3456789</ComicID>
      <Event Name="Superreal Event" Position="1">
        <EventID>1248237528354</EventID>
      </Event>
    </Book>
    <Book Series="Awesome Name" Number="25" Volume="2200" Year="2200"> 
      <IssueID>45678987777</IssueID>
      <ComicID>3456789</ComicID>
      <Event Name="Superreal Event" Position="2">
        <EventID>1248237528354</EventID>
      </Event>
    </Book>
  </Books>
  <Matchers />
</ReadingList>

Would it make sense to have the Event tag higher up in the order to denote a large event rather than repeating it for each book?

<Name>Example Reading list</Name>
  <Books>
     <Event Name="Superreal Event" Position="1">
        <EventID>1248237528354</EventID>
          <Book Series="Awesome Name" Number="24" Volume="2200" Year="2200">
               <IssueID>45678987654</IssueID>
               <ComicID>3456789</ComicID>
          </Book>
     </Event>

That way we don't have to open and close the event tags hundreds of times. I think it would also make it slightly easier for human reading to find which books are in said event.

Would it make sense to have the Event tag higher up in the order to denote a large event rather than repeating it for each book?

While it makes sense in context of a list containing a single event, consider producing one for a series, which might reference multiple events over their runtime.

I'm also not sure how that would affect parsing? Having events as a sub-tag of "Book" means that a parser can easily grab all books because they're at the same level. If you introduce an intermediate level I'm not sure how that affects XML parsing scripts.

I'm thinking it's best to organise everything by book and try to keep them as a self-contained object with all info internal

Should we add publication month along with the year. That will help with series with the same volume year if we remove CV IDs at some point.