Chapter 1:  Introduction

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This document is the reference guide for version 5.00 of CML, the Caucus Markup Language.  CML is a scripting language that combines HTML tags with simple programming constructs and database functions.  The CML language interpreter is the core of the World Wide Web interface to the Caucus conferencing system (hence the name).

This guide assumes considerable familiarity with HTML, the World Wide Web, Web browsers, and the Caucus conferencing system.  For more information about Caucus, see the CaucusCare home page at http://caucuscare.com.

This document is copyright © 1996-2005 by CaucusCare.  This is a work-in-progress, and will be frequently revised.  This edition corresponds to the CML interpreter provided with the "Caucus 5.0" package.  Corrections and comments (but not questions) should be sent to the author at roth@caucuscare.com.

Caucus 4 vs. Caucus 5
Caucus 5 marked a major transition in the handling of the underlying Caucus data -- moving from many different "flat files" to a (mostly) MySQL database.

As a result, there have been major changes in the CML function list.  Some chapters have a separate "Caucus 4" section at the bottom; these functions should only be used to read "old" data, in the process of converting it to the "new", Caucus 5, forms.  The list of version 4 vs version 5 functions is frankly somewhat confusing, and occasionally incorrect.  This will be fixed in the near future.

New features and functions in 5.x
Once the official "base" version 5.0 has been released, any new functions added after that point will be announced here.