Re: DOCBOOK: Subsets anyone?

[Bob Stayton <bobs at caldera dot com>]

On Sun, Sep 29, 2002 at 02:05:36PM -0400, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
> I've noticed DocBook seems to have a shortage of tags, so I figured I'd 
> propose my own.  I began to build a 'master' document for the documents I 
> have.  My documents are currently books.  Thus far, my books physically 
> reside in separate directories with the files for each book colocated with 
> the others of that book.
> 
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book1/subj1-book1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book1/subj1-book1-ch1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book1/subj1-book1-ch2.xml
> ...
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book2/subj1-book2.xml
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book2/subj1-book2-ch1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject1/subj1-book2/subj1-book2-ch2.xml
> ...
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book1/subj2-book1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book1/subj2-book1-ch1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book1/subj2-book1-ch2.xml
> ...
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book2/subj2-book2.xml
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book2/subj2-book2-ch1.xml
> /root-of-work/subject2/subj2-book2/subj2-book2-ch2.xml
> ...
> 
> I realized I wanted to form a global document to hold all these books.  So I 
> started to make a set.  I then realized that I actually wanted a set for each 
> subject, and then a set of all sets.  But then I wondered if the set of all 
> sets could contain itsself.  After I recovered from the mental stack 
> overflow, I decided subsets might be nice to have.
> 
> Do others follow my thinking here?  Is this a good idea?

I can't speak to the general need for a set of sets, but
I do know that it is pretty easy to extend the DocBook DTD
to permit it.  You can start your master set file with the
following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE set PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN" "docbook4.2/docbo
okx.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % local.book.class "| set">
]>
<set role="masterset">
<title>Master set title</title>
<set>
<title>First set title</title>
<book>
<title>First book title</title>
...
</book>
</set>
</set>

The 'local.book.class' entity is normally empty, ready
to be customized.  It extends the 'book.class' entity.
The 'book.class' parameter entity is only used in 'set',
so it would be safe to extend it to include set for
your purposes.    

Of course, you'd also have to extend the stylesheets you
are using to handle the set with role="masterset".

-- 

Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
Caldera International, Inc.                 fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@caldera.com