Re: New XML conversion tool for Debiandoc SGML
Quoting Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>:
> I have uploaded debiandoc-sgml 1.1.91 which fix XHTML aissues and XML
> conversion.
Thanks for your work!
Some suggestions (sorry, not as a patch):
1. You correctly write, that DocBook is better maintained.
DocBook XML has more advantages, relevant to the reader:
- table support
- graphics support
- additional output formats (CHM, JavaHelp, nroff)
2. Not necessary, but good practise IMHO: Use UTF-8 - always!
Switching from SGML to XML is a good point in time to fix
the encoding as well. To convert other encodings one can
use iconv, e.g. iconv -f iso-8859-1 -t utf-8
3. The use of ENTITY is XML is not really nice (too SGMLish?).
To include other documents, it's better to use xi:include,
so you can even include single sections or paragraphs from
other XML files. Character entities are not necessary,
because we all use UTF-8, don't we? Leaves "short-cuts"
such as &gpl; -> "GNU General Public License".
4. In DebianDoc, people use <sect1>, <sect2>, etc. This is
possible in DocBook as well, but one should avoid it.
You cannot easily re-arrange a document or include a
sect2 from one docuement in a sect3 of another. Better
use <section> - always. When changing a document from
SGML into XML this should be done as well.
5. There is an addtional method to test an XML document:
xmllint, which works very well.
Cheers, WB
Reply to: