Format Standards

See the SAP format specification ​https://asap.sourceforge.net/sap-format.html for the available tags and their technical specification.

Title and Filename Standards (NAME Tag)

1. The words "A, An, And, As, By, From, For, In, Of, On, Or, The, To" shall be lowercase in filenames and NAME tags.
   Exception: The filename begins with such a word.

2. The apostrophe should be omitted in filenames.
   Example: "Don't Worry Be Happy" -> filename "Dont_Worry_Be_Happy.sap"
   Example: "I'm in Love" -> filename "Im_in_Love.sap"

3. Omit articles where they are the first word of the title. (pg)
   Example: "The_Nutty_Professor.sap" -> "Nutty_Professor.sap"
   Note: This is practiced, but not very consistently.
   
   

Author Standards (AUTHOR Tag)

1. Use full names, separated by "&" (pfusik)
   Example: "Jan & David Spilka" -> "Jan Spilka & David Spilka" ?
   Reason: Normally, the value of the "AUTHOR" tag is shown to the user without further processing. Exceptions are the ASMA web player and the Windows Explorer plugins, which split authors on " & ", so it will show two authors: "Jan" and "David Spilka".

2. Avoid diminutives (pfusik)
   Examples: "Johnny" -> "John", "Maciek Szczesniak" -> "Maciej Szcześniak", "Slawek Sledz" -> "Sławomir Śledź"

3. Use "<?> (nickname)" if the real name is unknown (pfusik)
   Example: AUTHOR "null1024" -> AUTHOR "<?> (null1024)"

Date Standards (DATE Tag)

1. Use DD/MM/YYYY (preferred), DD-DD/MM/YYYY, MM/YYYY, MM-MM/YYYY, YYYY, YYYY-YYYY ) (pfusik)
   It is possible to replace the last digits with question marks when they are unknown.