[Sbcl-devel] Patch for Docbook XML

[Kevin R. <ke...@ro...>]

I've attached a patch for SBCL which changes the format of the user
manual from SGML to XML. I offer the patch for consideration.
make-doc.sh creates just the chunked HTML files, but an
included Makefile can also produce PDF and text output. (PDF file
generation requires FOP from the Apache project)

Pros:
  1) The Docbook technical committee is moving more towards XML. Norm
  Walsh has opined that the XML RELAX NG schema be normative in
  Docbook 5, but still still support the SGML DTD's for backward
  compatibility. The Docbook Definitive Guide is written in XML.
  2) There are a wider variety of tools to process and validate XML=20
  documents compared to SGML.
  3) I've found that xmllint and xsltproc have caught several=20
  errors that jade did not catch.=20
  4) PDF files can be created directly from the FO output of the XSLT.
  TeX is no longer required.
  5) Using a "modular" form of Docbook, the individual chapters are
  valid XML documents that can be separately validated. There's an
  excellent chapter on "modular" Docbook in the very helpful online
  book at http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/
  6) There's a nice text file output option in the patched files,
  though this could also be added to the SGML documentation.
 =20
Cons:
  1) SBCL developers likely have Jade and DSSSL already setup on their
  system. They may need to install xsltproc (or equivalent XSLT
  processor). Jade can also process XML, but I believe that xsltproc is
  a better XML validator. The Docbook XSL files will be to be
  installed if they are not already present.
  2) XML does not accept the </> end tag abbreviation which the SBCL
  documentation employs.

--=20
Kevin Rosenberg
ke...@ro...