SGML - sgmltools replacement?

Author

sgmltools replacement?

Oliver Corff

2005-09-16, 8:08 am

Dear all,

Please accept my apologies if this question is too simple-minded.
I'v been using the sgmltools and the linuxdoc DTD which used to
be shipped with RH Linux for years; recently I had to install a
new system, and had to find out that Fedora doesn't contain this
toolbox anymore.

I have a lot of linuxdoc documents which I usually translate into
PDF format (using LaTeX as back-end formatter), and much of my
material is macro-generated thus significantly reducing my willing-
ness to switch to a different type of DTD and chain of tools.
Also, I'd continue to keep the look and feel of these documents
as I see them as part of my identity.

What application can I use for processing my documents? On my FC3
box, I find a bewildering plethora of files somehow related to
processing SGML documents, but none of the applications I tried
seemed to be able to process my files.

All hints are appreciated,

best regards,

Oliver.
--
Dr. Oliver Corff e-mail: corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Peter Flynn

2005-09-16, 7:47 pm

Oliver Corff wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Please accept my apologies if this question is too simple-minded.
> I'v been using the sgmltools and the linuxdoc DTD which used to
> be shipped with RH Linux for years; recently I had to install a
> new system, and had to find out that Fedora doesn't contain this
> toolbox anymore.

I'm afraid linuxdoc was already going out of date when I documented
it in 1998. I believe the replacement is DocBook.

> I have a lot of linuxdoc documents which I usually translate into
> PDF format (using LaTeX as back-end formatter), and much of my
> material is macro-generated thus significantly reducing my willing-
> ness to switch to a different type of DTD and chain of tools.

I think the toolchain is the same (Jade DSSSL or XSLT to LaTeX to PDF).

> Also, I'd continue to keep the look and feel of these documents
> as I see them as part of my identity.
>
> What application can I use for processing my documents? On my FC3
> box, I find a bewildering plethora of files somehow related to
> processing SGML documents, but none of the applications I tried
> seemed to be able to process my files.

I thought they had produced a conversion tool. If not, just make
your linuxdoc files well-formed XML and write an XSLT transformation
to DocBook or whatever they have picked for their current DTD. You
only have to transform the files once.

///Peter

Oliver Corff

2005-09-16, 7:47 pm

Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:

: I'm afraid linuxdoc was already going out of date when I documented
: it in 1998. I believe the replacement is DocBook.

Oops, I was not aware of that. Always kept using it because it was small,
simple and efficient and produced exactly what I needed.

: I think the toolchain is the same (Jade DSSSL or XSLT to LaTeX to PDF).

Does this imply I have to install jadetex?

: I thought they had produced a conversion tool. If not, just make
: your linuxdoc files well-formed XML and write an XSLT transformation
: to DocBook or whatever they have picked for their current DTD. You
: only have to transform the files once.

Do I stand any chance to use the linuxdoc DTD with a more recent tool
than sgmltools? So as to keep changes to my files and changes to the
look and feel as minimal as possible?

Thank you very much so far, I'll start trying tonight,

Oliver.

--
Dr. Oliver Corff e-mail: corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Peter Flynn

2005-09-16, 7:47 pm

Oliver Corff wrote:

> Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:
>
> : I'm afraid linuxdoc was already going out of date when I documented
> : it in 1998. I believe the replacement is DocBook.
>
> Oops, I was not aware of that. Always kept using it because it was small,
> simple and efficient and produced exactly what I needed.

I may be wrong: check with the project. Without digging out my notes,
I recollect it was a rather suboptimal DTD.

> : I think the toolchain is the same (Jade DSSSL or XSLT to LaTeX to PDF).
>
> Does this imply I have to install jadetex?

As far as I know, if you are processing Linuxdoc you already have it,
haven't you? I thought Linuxdoc was predicated on Jade.

> : I thought they had produced a conversion tool. If not, just make
> : your linuxdoc files well-formed XML and write an XSLT transformation
> : to DocBook or whatever they have picked for their current DTD. You
> : only have to transform the files once.
>
> Do I stand any chance to use the linuxdoc DTD with a more recent tool
> than sgmltools? So as to keep changes to my files and changes to the
> look and feel as minimal as possible?

Linuxdoc is SGML, so your tool choices nowadays are severely limited.
DSSSL is many orders of magnitude more a pain in the butt than XSLT :-)

I would seriously make the move to DocBook if you want to stay in step
with the way things are moving. I know it's a pain to change, but that's
what the LDP uses, and it's the standard for computing documentation.
And once the change is made, there is a lot more software available.
I don't think their output format has changed much, as I think they
kept pretty much the same look and feel as before.

> Thank you very much so far, I'll start trying tonight,

Sorry to give such a negative reply, but SGML Linuxdoc was always a
blind alley, which is why they moved away from it.

///Peter

Oliver Corff

2005-09-17, 4:28 am

Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:

: I may be wrong: check with the project. Without digging out my notes,
: I recollect it was a rather suboptimal DTD.

Maybe it was suboptimal, but it alway satisfied my (limited) needs.

: As far as I know, if you are processing Linuxdoc you already have it,
: haven't you? I thought Linuxdoc was predicated on Jade.

No, neither. Since my computer was stolen in May I had to rebuild everything
from scratch (as I always made back-ups of my user data in /home, and
my stuff in /usr/local and, but with 'off-the-shelf' software I just
kept a list of what I need). I could not imagine 'mainstream' stuff
would be discontinued...

: I would seriously make the move to DocBook if you want to stay in step
: with the way things are moving. I know it's a pain to change, but that's
: what the LDP uses, and it's the standard for computing documentation.
: And once the change is made, there is a lot more software available.
: I don't think their output format has changed much, as I think they
: kept pretty much the same look and feel as before.

Well, looks that I have to.

By doing a 'locate .dtd" on my present system I find /usr/share/sgml/docbook/
(smgl|xml)-dtd-(multiple versions)/ being populated with dozens of DTDs,
let alone docbook.dtd appears six times. However, I fail to find the SGML
applications that go with it: $ docbook2.. does not seem to be available
on my system. What do I have to look for?

Thank you for the information - I've kept myself out of recent development
because I simply sticked with what was usable for me.

Best regards,

Oliver.

--
Dr. Oliver Corff e-mail: corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de

William F Hammond

2005-09-17, 8:27 pm

Oliver Corff <corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de> writes:

> Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:
.. . .
> : I would seriously make the move to DocBook if you want to stay in step
> : with the way things are moving. I know it's a pain to change, but that's
> : what the LDP uses, and it's the standard for computing documentation.
> : And once the change is made, there is a lot more software available.
> : I don't think their output format has changed much, as I think they
> : kept pretty much the same look and feel as before.
>
> Well, looks that I have to.

There was a thread here in the summer of 1999 about LinuxDoc vs.
Docbook. (Peter and I were both in it.) On Aug 7, 1999 Christopher
Browne posted a message containing a DSSSL sheet by someone else for
transformation (driven by jade) from LinuxDoc to Docbook. It should
prove useful for your conversions, but it will probably need some
tweeking to output the current version of Docbook.

In fact, "ld2db" seems these days to be maintained:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/ld2db-filter-2/

Looking at http://www.tldp.org/, I find howto's that may be useful:
DocBook Demystification HOWTO
DocBook Install mini-HOWTO
DocBook XML/SGML Processing Using OpenJade
LDP Author Guide

-- Bill

Oliver Corff

2005-09-18, 4:22 am

William F Hammond <hammond@csc.a1bany.edu> wrote:

: There was a thread here in the summer of 1999 about LinuxDoc vs.
: Docbook. (Peter and I were both in it.) On Aug 7, 1999 Christopher
: Browne posted a message containing a DSSSL sheet by someone else for
: transformation (driven by jade) from LinuxDoc to Docbook. It should
: prove useful for your conversions, but it will probably need some
: tweeking to output the current version of Docbook.

: In fact, "ld2db" seems these days to be maintained:
: http://freshmeat.net/projects/ld2db-filter-2/

: Looking at http://www.tldp.org/, I find howto's that may be useful:
: DocBook Demystification HOWTO
: DocBook Install mini-HOWTO
: DocBook XML/SGML Processing Using OpenJade
: LDP Author Guide

Dear Bill,

Thank you very much, your provided the key; my problem was really to
find a way out of the maze of all the docbook, jade, openjade, jadetex,
dsssl, linuxdoc etc. maze.

Even though I happened to rind a working linuxdoc rpm hours before
your posting, I now consider it to be of temporary use, just for
producing the most urgent files this weekend, but in the long run
I'll switch to DocBook,

best regards and thanks again,

Oliver.

--
Dr. Oliver Corff e-mail: corff@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Peter Flynn

2005-09-18, 7:36 pm

Oliver Corff wrote:

> Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> wrote:
>
> : I may be wrong: check with the project. Without digging out my notes,
> : I recollect it was a rather suboptimal DTD.
>
> Maybe it was suboptimal, but it alway satisfied my (limited) needs.

Absolutely. I have lots of suboptimal DTDs which I use precisely because
they do that.

> : As far as I know, if you are processing Linuxdoc you already have it,
> : haven't you? I thought Linuxdoc was predicated on Jade.
>
> No, neither. Since my computer was stolen in May I had to rebuild
> everything from scratch (as I always made back-ups of my user data in
> /home, and my stuff in /usr/local and, but with 'off-the-shelf' software I
> just kept a list of what I need). I could not imagine 'mainstream' stuff
> would be discontinued...

In that case my apologies. Looking over my notes I find that indeed the
only processor distributed for the QWERTZ DTD was a specially-written one.
I think this must have been what I was originally complaining about when I
first saw it.

> By doing a 'locate .dtd" on my present system I find
> /usr/share/sgml/docbook/ (smgl|xml)-dtd-(multiple versions)/ being
> populated with dozens of DTDs, let alone docbook.dtd appears six times.

Yes, it's madness: every application distributes its own copy because
there is (supposedly) no universally-agreed place to store it, so for
safety everyone supplies their own. It used to be /usr/local/lib/sgml
but I see it's now /usr/share/apps or /usr/share/sgml.

Use the one in /usr/share/apps/ksgmltools2/docbook/xml-dtd-4.1.2
if you have such a thing -- but in practice the version isn't critical:
the markup doesn't change significantly.

One of the major errors in XML design was making the SYSTEM identifier
compulsory: lots of apps now provide only the URI as the SYSTEM identifier
so you can't use them if you're disconnected without editing the file to
change the identifier. Universal connectivity and speed will take MUCH
longer to arrive than we originally envisaged.

> However, I fail to find the SGML applications that go with it: $
> docbook2.. does not seem to be available on my system. What do I have to
> look for?

It depends what you want to convert to what. Have a look on
http://sgmltools-lite.sourceforge.net/

> Thank you for the information - I've kept myself out of recent development
> because I simply sticked with what was usable for me.

I did that once too, and eventually I had to bite the bullet. Painful,
but the pain is short-lived.

///Peter

William F Hammond

2005-09-18, 7:36 pm

Peter Flynn <peter.nosp@m.silmaril.ie> writes:

> One of the major errors in XML design was making the SYSTEM identifier
> compulsory: lots of apps now provide only the URI as the SYSTEM identifier
> so you can't use them if you're disconnected without editing the file to
> change the identifier. Universal connectivity and speed will take MUCH
> longer to arrive than we originally envisaged.

Whether or not I'm connected, I dislike going to the network for
resources that I constantly use.

Fortunately if one's parser supports catalogs (e.g., onsgmls) one
can use one system identifier to resolve another. For example, with
osp/onsgmls something like

SGMLDECL "xml.dcl"
SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"
"xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"

where the local system identifier is relative to the location of the
catalog.

If one wants to use a lightweight parser not supporting catalogs such
as might accompany an XSLT engine, first use something like osp to
make a standalone XML copy of the document instance.

-- Bill