2.4 A path to solution

Our general strategy is an evolutionary one. We have developed a DLMF L^ATEX class that strays as little as possible from standard L^ATEX markup, while encouraging content over presentation. This `modestly' semantic markup is described further in Section 3.

Our initial work on the mathematical search problem adapts and augments a conventional text search engine to meet the needs of the DLMF. This involves predigesting the mathematics into a more textual form before indexing, defining and implementing a math query language to express formula queries naturally and transforming the search queries into special forms. While perhaps not ideal, the method has had remarkable success so far. The approach is described in more detail in Section 4.

These approaches will allow us to reach many of our goals in the short term, while we continue research and development on better solutions. Focusing the authors on content over presentation and implementation specific details, will allow us to evolve the handling of the material without restarting the project from scratch.