James Cummings wrote:
However, I would echo what I'd say to Abdullah above. *Why* add line numbers? The *only* reason really to add line numbers these days is if the line numbering is irregular for some reason. (i.e. the text goes 1,2,3,4, *big burnt hole*,12,13,14.) Amazingly, computers are really good at counting, and counting lines is easy. So, mark everything up as <l> and then just number them automatically when producing a presentation version.
Actually, my situation is that very one (well, not the *big burnt hole*, but the general idea): I want to have the line numbering in the concordance I'm building be in conformance to line numbering in a "standard reference system" (to use TEI jargon), that is, the line numbering in a standard edition, and there are missing lines and stanzas, duplicated lines, inversions of lines, etc. in my text as compared to the standard line numbering--a pretty common situation in medieval and early modern texts. The standard reference system also has several series of line numbers beginning at 1 and extending to the hundreds. So I can use automatic numbering to generate an initial matching of number to line for each of the chunks, but I need to fiddle a bit around the anomalies and then actually stick the numbers to the lines permanently before concordancing.
Thanks to everyone for the excellent suggestions.
Murray