Re: sgml -> texi

[Lalo Martins <lalo at webcom dot com>]

On Wed, Dec 08, 1999 at 03:49:49PM -0200, Lalo Martins wrote:
> Found it.
> 
> On Debian, apt-get install docbook2texi (duh.)

Or docbk-xml2x if you want to use docbk/XML instead of
docbook/SGML (may have some ups, don't know). Currently the
XML->texi generator is far more clueless, but all further
development will be on it (because it's easy to convert
docbook/SGML to docbk/XML).


> Haven't really tested it a lot, but Debian's ``task-sgml''
> meta-package installs this one, so it should work.
> 
> I tried converting the latest version of the FEAST spec, and it
> freaked out on nodes with repeated names. Shouldn't be a
> problem for existing texinfo documentation if it's converted to
> sgml. And a better converter is being written (I think).

Ok, here's the promised followup.

I ``normalized'' the node names in the sgml input and it still
wouldn't work. Then I found out that I had to delete
feast.refs. I presume I have to do this whenever I rename nodes.

Also, it generates an invalid header:

\input texinfo
@settitle @titlepage
@title{}
FEAST specification, v0.0.2
@author Lalo Martins
@end titlepage

I fixed this manually to:

\input texinfo
@settitle FEAST specification, v0.0.2
@titlepage
@title FEAST specification, v0.0.2
@author Lalo Martins
@end titlepage

and it generated quite good info output. I'm sure it's easy to
fix the script (but I won't try, I suck at perl).

I upload the whole thing (*.{sgml,refs,texi,info}) to
http://zope.gf.com.br/lalo/feastdoc.tar.gz if anybody wants to
check it out.


The bottom line is: yes, SGML can already be used as the main
documentation for a GNU project, benefit from all the existing
and upcoming SGML/XML manipulation tools, and still produce
info, roff and all the goodies that come with texinfo.

[]s,
                                               |alo
                                               +----
--
      I am Lalo of deB-org. You will be freed.
                 Resistance is futile.

http://www.webcom.com/lalo      mailto:lalo@webcom.com
                 pgp key in the web page

Debian GNU/Linux       --        http://www.debian.org