NAME

       docbook2man-spec.pl - convert DocBook RefEntries to man pages

SYNOPSIS

       sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl

       nsgmls [ sgml document ]| sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl

DESCRIPTION

       docbook2man  is a sgmlspl spec file that produced man pages (using the -man macros) from DocBook RefEntry
       markup.

       The program reads ESIS produced by nsgmls (or other SGML parsers) from standard input.  Markup not  found
       in RefEntry is discarded.

       Its output, the converted man pages, are written to the current directory.  If RefMeta information is not
       specified in a RefEntry, then the man page will be written to standard output.

       The  file manpage.links will also be created, which contains any aliases of the manpages generated.  This
       file is in the format:

       <man page> <alias
       manpage>

       The manpage.refs file keeps track of XRef references.  Note that if the input document  has  any  forward
       references,  then  docbook2man  may  have  to  be invoked twice (the first time updating manpage.refs) to
       resolve them.

REQUIREMENTS

       The SGMLSpm package from CPAN.  This package includes the sgmlspl script that is also needed.

LIMITATIONS

       Trying docbook2man on non-DocBook or non-conformant SGML results in undefined behavior. :-)

       This program is a slow, dodgy Perl script.

       This program does not come close to supporting all the possible markup in DocBook, and may produce  wrong
       output in some cases with supported markup.

TO DO

       Obvious stuff:

       • Fix docbook2man breakages found in the test documents, especially weird.sgml.

       • Add new element handling and fix existing handling.  Be robust.

       • Produce  cleanest, readable man output as possible (unlike some other converters).  Follow Linux man(7)
         convention.  As conversion to man pages is usually not done very often, it is better to be  slower/more
         complicated  than to produce wrong output.  Also if someone wants to give up using DocBook for whatever
         reason, the last-converted man pages can then be maintained manually.

       • Make it faster. I think most of the speed problems so far is with parsing ESIS.  Rewrite SGMLS.pm  with
         C and/or get input directly from SP.

       • Support  other (human) languages.  But what to do with non-ASCII charsets?  SGMLSpm doesn't report them
         and roff does not grok  them.   [Comment:  text  after  enclosed  lists  (and  SS  blocks)  will  break
         docbook2man] If we do this, more people can use DocBook.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>

       This  program  is  free  software;  you  can  redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
       General Public License as published by the Free Software  Foundation;  either  version  2,  or  (at  your
       option) any later version.

       You  should  have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; see the file
       COPYING.  If not, please write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

                                                 29 October 2012                          DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1)