meca

Types and utilities for working with MECA bundles documents in Node and Typescript.

Read and write MECA bundles from node or see summaries from the command line.

To use from the command line, use the -g to create a global install, which will provide a meca CLI:

npm install -g meca
meca -v

What is MECA?

Manuscript Exchange Common Approach (MECA) is a NISO standard for transferring scientific manuscripts between vendors. It is a ZIP file with a manifest.xml, which contains a JATS file as the article-metadata and other source materials.

From the command line

Commands available:

validate: validate the MECA zip file, including the JATS

meca validate my-meca-file.zip

From Typescript

The manifest.xml can be read and written as follows.

import fs from 'fs';
import { ManifestXml, createManifestXml } from 'meca';

const data = fs.readFileSync('manifest.xml').toString();
const manifest = new ManifestXml(data);
console.log(manifest.items);

// Write a manifest file
const roundTrip = createManifestXml(manifest.items);
fs.writeFileSync('manifest.xml', roundTrip);

The ManifestItem has the following shape:

type ManifestItem = {
  id?: string;
  itemType?: string;
  version?: string;
  title?: string;
  description?: string;
  href: string;
  mediaType?: string;
  fileOrder?: string;
  metadata?: Record<string, string>;
};

which translates to the following XML, for example, from the NISO spec:

<item id="b-456" item-type="figure" item-version="0">
  <item-description>Figure</item-description>
  <file-order>3</file-order>
  <item-metadata>
    <metadata metadata-name="Figure Number">1</metadata>
    <metadata metadata-name="Caption"
    >This is the caption for Figure 1</metadata>
  </item-metadata>
  <instance media-type="image/jpeg" xlink:href="wrist_scaphoidvx_diagnosis.jpg" />
</item>

We assume that there is only one instance for each item and will warn if that is not the case.

transfer.xml

import fs from 'fs';
import { TransferXml, createTransferXml } from 'meca';

const data = fs.readFileSync('manifest.xml').toString();
const transfer = new TransferXml(data);
console.log(transfer.source);

// Write a transfer file
const roundTrip = createTransferXml({ source, destination, instructions });
fs.writeFileSync('transfer.xml', roundTrip);

The source has the following structure:

const source = {
  provider: {
    name: 'Aries Systems',
    contact: {
      name: { given: 'Mary', surname: 'Smith' },
      email: '[email protected]',
      phone: '444-555-0101',
    },
  },
  publication: {
    type: 'journal',
    title: 'The Journal of the American Medical Association',
    acronym: 'JAMA',
    contact: {
      email: '[email protected]',
    },
  },
};

Which creates the following XML:

<transfer-source>
  <service-provider>
    <provider-name>Aries Systems</provider-name>
    <contact>
      <contact-name>
        <surname>Smith</surname>
        <given-names>Mary</given-names>
      </contact-name>
      <email>[email protected]</email>
      <phone>444-555-0101</phone>
    </contact>
  </service-provider>
  <publication type="journal">
    <publication-title>The Journal of the American Medical Association</publication-title>
    <acronym>JAMA</acronym>
    <contact>
      <email>[email protected]</email>
    </contact>
  </publication>
</transfer-source>

This package is ESM only.