Re: [Docutils-users] Setting element "span" instead of element "p"

[Schimon J. <sc...@fe...>]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2025 08:06:50 -0000 (UTC)
Guenter Milde via Docutils-users <doc...@li...>
wrote:

> On 2025-07-25, Schimon Jehudah via Docutils-users wrote:
> > Good day.  
> 
> > Is it feasible to set the routine (i.e. default) element to "span",
> > or any other element, instead of element "p"?  
> 
> Isn't this what XSLT is made for?
> 

I meant, that the produced output of docutils utilizes the tag "p".

> 
> >>>> from docutils.core import publish_parts
> >>>> publish_parts(source="This an XHTML text with a `link
> >>>> <https://movim.eu>`_ for XMPP PubSub",
> >>>> writer_name="xhtml")["fragment\  
> > "]
> > '<p>This an XHTML text with a <a class="reference external"
> > href="https://movim.eu">link</a> for XMPP PubSub</p>\n'  
> 
> When processing Docutils output with XSLT, you may consider using
> Docutils native XML format as starting point. HTML is missing several
> features of Docutils documents (e.g. footnotes) that must be
> emulated. Starting from Docutils XML saves you from reverse
> engineering.
> 
> See https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/docutils.dtd
> and https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/doctree.html.
> 
> ::
> 
>   from docutils.core import publish_string
>   publish_string(source="Text with link: https://example.org", 
>   		 writer_name="xml",
> 		 settings_overrides={"indents": True, 
> 		 		     "output_encoding": "unicode"})
> 
> With the upcoming Docutils 0.22, you will be able to re-read the
> processed Docutils XML with the "xml" parser and export to all
> supported formats.
> 

This is done separately.

Docutils is utilized to convert reStructuredText to XHTML, and then
LXML is utilized to incorporate that output to XSLT.

https://git.xmpp-it.net/sch/Rivista/src/branch/main/rivista/interface/http.py
https://git.xmpp-it.net/sch/Rivista/src/branch/main/rivista/utility/rst.py
https://git.xmpp-it.net/sch/Rivista/src/branch/main/rivista/parser/xml.py

Should XML output be utilized, would links be realized with the tag "a"?

> If you want HTML output from Docutils, you may consider the more
> modern "html5" writer.  Both, the "xhtml" writer and the "html5"
> writer emit HTML that is also valid XML. However the "xhtml" writer
> (an alias for "html4css1") is less semantic in its output. 
> (On the other hand, the "xhtml" writer is more stable, because it is
> mainly kept for backwards compatibility.)
> 
> Günter
> 

I will try the option of XHTML.

Thank you,
Schimon.