[DB2LaTeX-devel] XSL Table Code (repost)

[David H. <dav...@vi...>]

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Fellow db2latex'ers,

Please find attached my table code for db2latex which I'm releasing 
under the GPL.

This is a complete rewrite of the table code in XSL.

Notes:

    * All templates run in the 'newtbl' mode and new and old tables can
      be freely interchanged. The example XSL file test.xsl uses the new
      code for all informaltable elements.
    * Handles row and column spanning, named column starts, missing
      'entry' elements
    * Handles rowsep and colsep with inheritance
    * Handles rotated cells
    * Handles horizontal and vertical alignment (within the capabilities
      of Latex tables)
    * Doesn't handle 'char' and 'charoff' attributes.
    * Doesn't support 'entrytbl' (although nested tables will work)
    * Requires 'calc' and 'multirow' packages. Note I strongly recommend
      editing multirow.sty and changing \def\@xmultirow... to
      \long\def\@xmultirow
    * Handles absolute and relative column widths (i.e. starred columns,
      including widths of the format '5*+3in')
    * Uses the 'tabular' environment but can use other packages (e.g.
      supertabular) by passing the 'tabletype' parameter.
    * The 'node-set' extension is used extensively. Your XSLT processor
      must be able to support this extension (most do).
    * rowseps and colseps are off by default as that seems to be what
      docbook's tests expect. However this isn't clear in the CALS spec.
      If in doubt, always give a default rowsep and colsep attribute in
      the 'tgroup' element.

Problems and differences from the original table code:

    * Each table cell is effectively set inside a 'parbox'. This means
      that pretty much anything can be put in a table cell without
      problems, but it does mean that cell contents will line-wrap. You
      should always try to set appropriate column widths.
    * The 'multirow' latex package makes some assumptions about the
      number of rows it's spanning. This can lead to strange spacing and
      overlapping cells. There's no easy fix for this that I know of
      except to use struts in the problem cells. I usually define a
      processing instruction as follows:

<xsl:template match="processing-instruction('strut')">
  <xsl:text>\rule{0pt}{</xsl:text>
  <xsl:value-of select="."/>
  <xsl:text>}</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

    You can then put <? strut 1.5em ?> or similar to open up problem rows.

Testing:

    * Tested with xsltproc only (libxml 20619, libxslt 10114 and
      libexslt 812)
    * The code passes the 18 'table' and 'informal' table tests with
      docbook 4.4 with the following caveats:
          o You will need the use template for 'para' given in test.xsl
            for informaltable test 017 as the standard db2latex
            paragraph handling is a bit broken.
          o informaltable test 015 fails as one of the column widths is
            given as '4in*' which seems pretty meaningless to me.
          o table tests 009 and 013 don't work properly as they use
            'entrytbl'
          o table test 016 fails as it uses HTML table tags.
    * The code works fine with all 1100+ tables listed in the Airbus
      Flight Crew Operating Manuals (for which they were originally
      developed)


Best wishes,

David Hedley




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