An interchange format

A format is needed to exchange electronic versions of lexical descriptions in a way that preserves their structure and allows to check their consistency accross platforms and representation systems. This format should be based on SGML (Standard Generalized Mark-up Language). The main advantages of SGML are well known:

• SGML is an ISO standard,
• SGML allows to define and check a generic structure for any kind of document,
• The ASCII files it defines are portable in all environments.