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Re: [docbook] Newbie: create named data items?
- From: Bob Stayton <bobs at sco dot com>
- To: Thomas Nichols <nx10mail at yahoo dot co dot uk>
- Cc: docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 01:34:13 -0700
- Subject: Re: [docbook] Newbie: create named data items?
- References: <5.2.1.1.0.20030627231645.03a75580@mail.plus.net>
On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 11:34:09PM +0100, Thomas Nichols wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm just starting to use DocBook XML in earnest, I'm trying to (ab?)use the
> DTD to store "meta" information about the text. Am I approaching this aright?
>
> Problem: a <book> has <section>s for a number of minerals. For each, I have
> a Name, a "History" section, a "Geology" section, etc. I want to create a
> valid DocBook doc, so that I can publish the entire book, but I want to add
> markup to allow me to print, say, just Name and Geology sections. A
> different stylesheet might extract just Name and History sections.
>
> I'm effectively trying to use the doc as generic and processable XML data,
> within the confines of DocBook. Is this a terrible approach? Would I be
> best writing in "uber-DocBook", my own markup which allows
> <geology>p>blah...</p></geology>
> and then transforming this into valid DocBook by either evaporating or
> excluding the spurious "geology" tags.
>
> I'd like to get to the point where the user says "show me the Name,
> Abundance in Earth's Crust and History" and the appropriate sections will
> be emitted. What other approaches can anyone suggest? Any feedback would be
> very welcome.
Take a look at the profiling features included with the
DocBook XSL stylesheet distribution. Profiling is the term used in
DocBook to describe conditional text. Conditional text means you can
create a single XML document with some elements marked as conditional.
When you process such a document, you can specify which conditions apply
for that version of output, and the stylesheet will include or exclude
the marked text to satisfy the conditions.
See http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/Profiling.html
for more information.
--
Bob Stayton 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Technical Publications voice: (831) 427-7796
The SCO Group fax: (831) 429-1887
email: bobs@sco.com
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