[Refdb-users] DocBook XML V4.1.2...

[Alan A. <al...@ru...>]

Hello,

I have been looking at RefDB for a few weeks, and I've been able to get it
running on a couple different machines in a couple different configurations.
However, I have gotten stuck using it the way I was hoping to.  I am stuck
in the creation of a bibliography from a DocBook XML file.  I followed
through the documentation with an example document that I created.  If I
stick strictly to DocBook SGML V3.1 then things seem to work; however, if I
move to XML things don't quite work so well.  As I am relatively new to XML
please don't discount ignorance on my part.

I've attached two sample files, one SGML and one XML that I've been using.
Note that there are some minor difference in these files as the <artheader>
tag was superceded by the <articleinfo> tag.  This tag, the
PUBLICID/SYSTEMID, and the <xref> closing tag--more explanation
below--should be the only differences between the two files.

Let's start with the DocBook V3.1 SGML file.  The documentation states to
run "runbib;" however, there is a problem with this because I need to enter
my password when the "rundbib" step is run and "runbib" doesn't forward the
password.  So, I chose to go through the steps manually--besides I learn
more this way.  The first step is to run Jade to transform the original
document into the CitationList XML file.  The documentation says:

	jade -t sgml -d citations.dsl /usr/lib/sgml/declaration/docbook-3.1.dcl
foo.sgml > foo.id.xml

It is interesting to note that the "citations.dsl" file gives a slightly
different version of this command line.  Which is correct?

For me the following works:

	jade -t sgml -c /etc/sgml/catalog -d
/usr/local/share/refdb/dsssl/citations.dsl
/usr/share/sgml/docbook/sgml-dtd-3.1-1.0-8/docbook.dcl pa-ref.sgml >
pa-ref.id.xml

The documentation also shows the <xref> tag without a close tag or trailing
"/".  While this is apparently correct for SGML, I should still be able to
use a closing tag if I choose.  this doesn't work and produces an error:

	"end tag for element \"XREF\" which is not open."

I didn't take it any further than successfully creating the CitationList
(pa-ref.id.xml) file--I assume RefDB will do what it is supposed to.

But, I want to create my documents in XML, and RefDB allegedly supports
DocBook XML documents.  Since there is "no official" version of DocBook XML
before 4.0, I have been using what was installed on my RedHat 7.3 system:
DocBook XML V4.1.2.

I would expect that the Jade command only needs to change to select XML as
the type and point to the XML declarations instead of the SGML declarations.
However, this does not work; when I run OpenJade I get errors:

	jade -t xml -d /usr/local/share/refdb/dsssl/citations.dsl -c
/etc/sgml/catalog /usr/share/sgml/xml.dcl pa-ref.xml > pa-ref.xml.id.xml

This gives the following error for each XREF tag I have:

	jade:/usr/local/share/refdb/dsssl/citations.dsl:156:16:E: 1st argument for
primitive "string-length" of wrong type: "#f" not a string

If I change the type back to SGML, then I get different errors--something
about entities in the entity files not being functions.  It appears that any
line with a "#" in it causes an error.

I'm guessing this is because I really want to use an XSL stylesheet instead
of a DSSSL stylesheet for the transformation to the CitationList.  If this
is true, shouldn't RefDB supply one if it claims to support XML?  If not,
what am I doing wrong?

For clarity I am using a stock RedHat 7.3 installation with "everything"
installed.  As such I use OpenJade 1.3.1.  I have RefDB 0.8.4a installed on
two machines and 0.8.6 installed on a third machine, and the problem exists
in all cases.  FYI, I have validated the docs using onsgmls and xmllint, and
I can process the xml files normally, i.e. create HTML and PDF from the
source using xsltproc and pdflatex.

I hope I have described the problem sufficiently.  If you need anything else
from me, I'd be happy to provide it.

One last question, the documentation states in several places that RefDB can
handle DocBook V3.1; does this mean that any version above this would not be
supported yet?  If so, how soon with newer DocBook versions be supported?
If not, what are the implications of using V4.1 or V4.2 instead of V3.1?

Thanks for the effort in making RefDB and helping me with this problem.

Al