> > Yes, you may be right. Personally, I would be equally
> happy with any
> > of the three alternative we've mentioned, or the use of an
> underscore:
> >
> > marc.245a
> > marc.245$a
> > marc.245.a
> > marc.245_a
> >
> > But I think it's important that we pick one of these forms
> and stick
> > with it. I would welcome comments from those who use MARC more
> > extensively.
>
> How about marc.245$a or

Errrm not sure how that differs from the second suggestion above?

> marc.856i2 (to designate e.g., second indicator)?

Because MARC tags can according to ISO2709 have alphanumeric values -
whilst it isn't ambiguous what

marc.iiii2 means

It could be confusing!

Also for indicators you may want to form a query of the form

marc.245$a = "Smith" where the Indicator1 = 4

Which isn't the same as

marc.245$a = "Smith" and marc.245i1 = 4 (as this does not imply that the
second operand applies to the same marc field as the first).

Hence for indicators is seems likely that these would have to be handled
by relational modifiers.

Matthew