COM API: Inconsistent reference

Eberhard Beilharz

BibleReferenceDetails.Book returns a different value for certain books than BibleDataTypeDetails.GetBooks(), e.g. "FirstJohn" vs. "1 John". Is this intentional? If so, is there a way to get one from the other?

Also, it would be nice if the COM API could directly return the numeric value for the book, or at least provide a way to get the numeric value from a name.

How does it work with localized versions of Logos? What will GetBooks() return then? Still the English book names?

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

BibleReferenceDetails.Book returns a different value for certain books than BibleDataTypeDetails.GetBooks(), e.g. "FirstJohn" vs. "1 John". Is this intentional? If so, is there a way to get one from the other?

The next beta should correct the BibleReferenceDetails.Book property so that it returns standardised identifiers for Bible book names (e.g., OSIS IDs as defined by http://www.crosswire.org/wiki/OSIS_Book_Abbreviations). It is intentional that "Book" returns an unchanging internal identifier so you can use it programmatically.

The Render method (which is how I'm assuming you get the text "1 John") creates a string that's suitable for display to an end-user. This string may change over time (though it's very likely to remain the same for Bible references).

You can convert one to the other by calling DataType.ParseReference, then using the Details property or Render method.

 

Also, it would be nice if the COM API could directly return the numeric value for the book, or at least provide a way to get the numeric value from a name.

There's not really any such thing as "the numeric value for the book", so we don't support that. (The order of books depends on your tradition; e.g., compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblia_Hebraica_Stuttgartensia#Book_order with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_the_Bible#Protestant_Canon. If you wanted, you could make your own table mapping Gen -> 1, Ex -> 2, etc., but I'm not sure if that would really be all that useful. Here's some example code that shows the differences between Render and Book, and also the differences between "numeric value" of the books with different data types:

Dim bible = lls.Application.DataTypes.GetDataType("Bible") ' the "regular" Bible data type
Dim bibleBhs = lls.Application.DataTypes.GetDataType("BibleBHS") ' the specialised BHS data type

Dim books = bible.Details.GetBooks() ' get all the books
Dim bhsBooks = bibleBhs.Details.GetBooks()

Dim readable = books(11).Render() ' 2 Kings
Dim bookName11 = books(11).Details.Book ' 2Ki
Dim bhsBookName11 = bhsBooks(11).Details.Book ' Isa

How does it work with localized versions of Logos? What will GetBooks() return then? Still the English book names?

If the user is running a localised version of Logos, the Render() method will return the book name the way they would read it, e.g., "1 Juan". If you don't want to rely on Logos 4 for the localisation, then it would be appropriate to create your own table (based off the internal book IDs returned by the "Book" property) and display them to the user in your preferred style.