Re: [klakier@pld.org.pl: Standard libxml-based processing scripts for DocBook?]
On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 11:48:55AM +0200, Rafa³ Kleger-Rudomin wrote:
> > I'll be integrating XML support in the docbook-utils package. You are welcome
> > if you want to help. However I'm not sure that it will be based on libxml,
> > it could be based on xalan/xerces as well. I'll be doing performance tests
>
> As regards xalan C++ I do not have good experiences (mostly core dumps).
> I also do not like their code and build process.
>
> Libxml is fast, and IMHO more maintainable.
>
> So far I find saxon most valuable tool for me, as far as java processors are concerned.
Saxon could be an alternative too, yes, albeit Java introduces performance
concerns. Libxml/libxslt rocks, but is still a bit moving too fast
(introducing source code incompatibilities). I haven't had so far core
dumps with xalan/xerces, and my incursions in the source code made on me
a good impression.
In fact, we do not really need to do tools that rely on a given
parser/renderer: after all, the DSSSL-based docbook2html can work both
with jade and openjade, so we could imagine abstraction scripts that
can work with many parsers.
> > as well. One issue I also want to resolve is support for DTD and XSLT customization
> > like KDE and Gnome ones: XML is poor at finding where files reside (unlike SGML)
>
> And IMO that's good. Catalogs were supposed to be useful solution, but managing
> them is really a pain and source of problems.
This is why I did so much efforts to normalize the SGML catalogs usage
at LSB in the past.
Not using catalogs (or using them as an optional feature) is not good
though; at KDE we are facing the following problems since we moved to
XML DocBook:
- how does a document find its DTD? The documents can be distributed
separately from their DTD, so neither absolute paths nor relative paths
work fine, unless autoconf or symlink hacks.
- how does a DTD customization refer to the DTD files that it modifies?
- how does a DTD provide hooks to customization files?
- same for XSLT customization issues
> > and this could be helped by choices at LSB normalization level.
>
> I agree, all we need is set of standarized path names :)
The SGML LSB standard paved the way for such an absolute paths hierarchy
by setting up a minimal set of rules in /usr/share/sgml. However, it
also addresses catalog issues by a mechanism of centralized catalogs in
/etc/sgml. I encourage you to read this document. So far the standard
does not state explicitely that XML setups should rely on absolute
paths. When we wrote the standard we were hoping that catalogs would
become a reality in the XML world, and we still do ;-).
> Where can I find docbook-utils primary site (CVS repo)?
The repository is on sourceware. Write Mark Galassi (rosalia@galassi.org)
if you want an account. There's also a mailing list named
docbook-tools@bazar.conectiva.com.br (it should be named docbook-utils,
it's a mistake we never took the time to fix).
--
Éric Bischoff - Documentation and Localization
Caldera (Deutschland) GmbH - Linux for eBusiness
Tel: +49 9131 7192 300 - Fax: +49 9131 7192 399
http://www.caldera.de/
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