Ubuntu Manpage: sgml2x — Easily formats SGML/XML documents using DSSSL style-sheets

NAME

       sgml2x — Easily formats SGML/XML documents using DSSSL style-sheets

SYNOPSIS

       sgml2x [options]   [sgmlfile  | xmlfile ]

       docclass-2-targetformat [options]   [sgmlfile  | xmlfile ]

Description

       sgml2x  allows  to  easily  format  a  SGML  or XML document using DSSSL style-sheets, and
       provides the following features:

          •  Multiple possible style-sheets per document class

          •  Easy specification  of  style-sheets  using  aliases,  with  support  for  parameter
             inheritance

          •  Easy  integration  of  new  style-sheets by adding a simple new definition file in a
             configuration directory

          •  The caller can specify a PATH-like list of configuration directories, defaulting  to
             a system-wide, a per-user, and a per-project configuration directories

          •  Automatic  selection  of  a  default  style-sheet  to  be  used,  based  on assigned
             priorities

          •  Pass arbitrary options to jade(1)

       The document-class used to look for the style-sheets, and the output format,  is  for  now
       only derived from the name with which the program is called, so you will want to call this
       program through symbolic links like docbook-2-pdf.

       sgml2x is a implemented as a shell wrapper around jade(1)  (or,  preferably,  openjade(1),
       although we use the generic name jade throughout this documentation), jadetex(1) and other
       tools.

       If there is no jadetex.cfg file near the document, a default one is copied,  that  enables
       production of PDF bookmarks.

Options

-c|--catalog catalog
Use the specified SGML catalog instead of the system default.

-C|--confdirs dir-list
Use (whitespace-separated) list of configuration directories. This option is
cumulative, i.e. you can use several -C options and the lists will be
concatenated.

The list elements should be ordered from the most generic configuration (e.g. system-wide)
to the most specific (e.g. project-wide).

If any directory is provided through this option, the default directory list will be
ignored.

-D|--dssslproc dsssl-processor
Use dsssl-processor to apply the style-sheet, instead of the default one. This
processor has to support jade-like options, such as -V.

When this option is not present, the first found in the dssslproc files from confdirs is
taken. See "Files" for more details.

-h|--help Display an help message and exit.

-j|--jade dsssl-processor
Obsolete synonym for --dssslproc.

--jadetexfilter perl-filter
Post-process the jadetex output using a perl filter.

This can be useful to force pagebreaks at some specific places to overcome stylesheet
problems, or to force hyphenations where TeX does not have enough patterns, or do any
other clever transformation you'd think about.

See the examples/command-lines file for possible uses.

-n|--no-act
Print commands instead of running them. Useful to learn about lower-level
tools, and for debugging the command-line.

-o|--openjade
This option is obsolete. openjade is now the default when available. Use
--dssslproc or a dssslproc configuration file to force a specific processor.

This option used to use openjade(1) as a DSSSL processor instead of jade(1).

-O|--jadeopts jade-options
Additional options to pass to jade(1). This option is cumulative, you can
specify several of them, the provided options will be concatenated.

-q|--quiet
Set verbosity to quiet

-r|--remarks
Render the content of document remarks in the document (remark elements in
DocBook 4, comment elements in DocBook 3), making the produced output an
internal-use-only document, printing a bold warning on the cover.

This is a docclass- and style-sheet-specific feature, and not all style-sheets will use
this.

-s|--style style
Select an output style to override the (eventually document-derived) default.

Styles currently available for a specific document class and for each output format are
dependent on the contents of the configuration directories, and can be displayed with the
--help option.

Note that it is good practice to specify this option in a build procedure, so that you get
reproducible results regardless of the available style-sheets.

-v|--verbose
Increase verbosity. This option can be specified multiple times.

--verbosity N
Set verbosity to N. The levels of verbosity are defined as follows:

quiet Only print errors

default Only print errors and warnings

verbose Also print notices

trace Also print significant commands as they are run (as --no-act does).

debug Also print debugging messages

-V|--version
Print the program version and exit.

Configuration

sgml2x uses a configuration directory tree instead of a configuration file, so that it is
easy for other packages to plug in with a low risk of breaking an existing setup.

Styles hierarchies are located in directories named styles in each configuration
directory. Old versions of this program used to put those hierarchies directly in the
configuration directories.

A configuration directory contains one directory for each known document class, named with
a document class nickname (e.g. docbook). Those docclass directories contain one sub-
directory for each class of output-format (currently, only html and print are supported).

Currently, implementation issues enforce a limitation on nicknames for document classes
and style-sheets: they can only contain alphanumeric and underscore characters. This
limitation may be dropped in a future release, but that's not going to happen before this
script gets rewritten in another language.

Each of those directory contain one file per available style. The names of these files
may only contain alphanumeric characters, and are used as nicknames for the styles. This
file contains lines with a key: value pattern, with the following keys being currently
supported:

Id The public identifier for the style-sheet

Desc A short description of the styles, to be displayed in the help message

pdfOverride, psOverride,
rtfOverride, mifOverride" 10 A dsssl symbol from the print style-sheet to be set
to #t (or a symbol=value pair, suitable as argument to jade's -V option),
to be used for the given print format.

Only one symbol per override line is allowed. To define values for several symbols, use
several lines.

Inherits The nickname of a style-sheet this one inherits from, to avoid needless
duplication of style definitions.

Currently, this only causes inheritance of the *Override parameters.

Priority An positive integer to help selecting the default style when one cannot be
derived from the document. Higher values get higher chance of being taken as
default. Take care of using low priorities for hyper-specialized styles for a
generic document-type, so that it does not get used by error.

For example, the current recommended policy for the DocBook style-sheets derived from
Norman Walsh's is as follows (and may change if experience proves it to be inadequate).

10 The base style-sheets, which usually must be customized.

0 Any style-sheet that was written for an hyper-specialized purpose (e.g.
marketing product sheet).

1000 A default style for all documents produced by an organization. Usually a
light customization, featuring layout preferences, the organization's
logo, or such things.

10-100 Miscellaneous generic customizations of the base style-sheets.

When you write an improved version of a style-sheet with priority n, you
usually want to select a higher priority.

Files

       /etc/sgml/sgml2x/

       ~/.sgml2x/

       ./sgml2x/ The  default  configuration  directories,  in  which the configuration files are
                 searched for.  See documentation for --confdirs for more details.

       confdir/style/
                 The hierarchy  that  defines  usable  styles.   See  "Configuration"   for  more
                 details.

       confdir/dssslproc
                 A  file containing an ordered list of dsssl processors to look for, separated by
                 newlines and/or whitespace.  Lines starting with a # character  are  treated  as
                 comments.  Common values include openjade and jade.

                 DSSSL  processors  specified  here  should  accept the -V and -D jade-compatible
                 command-line options.

                 The configuration directories are looked for starting  with  the  most  specific
                 one,  so that, with the default confdirs, the project settings may override user
                 settings, which in turn may override system settings.

                 The special value false can be used to stop the search and prevent looking  into
                 more   generic   directories.    If   for   example   a  project  must  use  the
                 openjade-1.4devel command and no other, it can specify  openjade-1.4devel  false
                 in its dssslproc file.

Caveats

       When  using  openjade-1.4devel  as  DSSSL processor, you'll see a complaint about the top-
       level flow-object generated by doctype.dsl, and automatic determination of  the  document-
       type  will  fail.   This  error is otherwise harmless.  Ideas of how to deal with this, or
       confirmation that openjade-1.4devel is too strict, will be appreciated :)

The future

       Planned features for future releases include:

          •  Integration of an index generator

          •  Integration of a pretty-printing engine for code examples

          •  Specification of transformations to be chained

          •  Declaration of subset docclasses to allow the use with any docclass  of  the  style-
             sheets that apply to its superset docclasses.

          •  Work  in  a  temporary  location  so  as  not  to pollute the working directory with
             temporary files.  This is not as easy as it sounds, because  it  breaks  a  document
             refers  to  image  files  using  relative  paths.   That  may be seen as a jade bug,
             however.

       Browse the full TODO list and send us more ideas !

Copyright

       Copyright © 2001-2003 Alcove & Yann Dirson.

       sgml2x is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.

       This documentation is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.

Contact us

       sgml2x  is  part   of   the   AlcoveBook   project   (link   to   URL   http://www.alcove-
       labs.org/en/software/alcovebook/)  .  Please use the AlcoveBook mailing lists (link to URL
       https://savannah.gnu.org/mail/?group_id=533)  to get in touch with developers and users.

       The list of bugs and feature requests is available through a Web interface  (link  to  URL
       https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?group_id=533)  .   Please  use it to submit problems and
       ideas.