The SGML standard describes an "entity manager" as the portion or component of an SGML system that maps SGML entities into the actual storage model (e.g., the file system). The standard itself does not define a particular mapping methodology or notation.
To assist the interoperability among various SGML tools and systems, the SGML Open consortium has passed a technical resolution that defines a format for an application-independent entity catalog that maps external identifiers and/or entity names to file names.
Each entry in the catalog associates a storage object identifier (such as a file name) with information about the external entity that appears in the SGML document. In addition to entries that associate public identifiers, a catalog entry can associate an entity name with a storage object identifier. For example, the following are possible catalog entries:
-- catalog: SGML Open style entity catalog for HTML --
-- $Id: 98.htm,v 1.1.1.1 1998/09/05 02:18:12 baccala Exp $ --
-- Ways to refer to Level 2: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN" html.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN" html.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Level 2//EN" html.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 2//EN" html.dtd
-- Ways to refer to Level 1: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Level 1//EN" html-1.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 1//EN" html-1.dtd
-- Ways to refer to
Strict Level 2: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN" html-s.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict//EN" html-s.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 2//EN" html-s.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 2//EN" html-s.dtd
-- Ways to refer to
Strict Level 1: most general to most specific --
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict Level 1//EN" html-1s.dtd
PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Strict Level 1//EN" html-1s.dtd
-- ISO latin 1 entity set for HTML --
PUBLIC "ISO 8879-1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN//HTML" ISOlat1\
sgml