Even if you use this index flag option you will still need to use mp to validate, evaluate, fix, and re-test the metadata. For the purpose of exchange of metadata without loss of information, a draft standard has been issued for the encoding of FGDC metadata. Download the draft encoding standard . The mp software will accept either format and can output text, SGML, HTML, or DIF on request from a single command line. Review of the errors file will reveal if and where problems may occur in the FGDC metadata.
Errors are usually structural problems where elements are missing.
Warnings should be looked at and repaired but will not affect subsequent parsing. Both errors and warnings should be examined to provide feedback to future metadata collection.