Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       docbook2texi-spec.pl - convert DocBook Booksto Texinfo documents

SYNOPSIS

       sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl

       nsgmls [ sgml document ]| sgmlspl docbook2texi-spec.pl [ basename ]

DESCRIPTION

       docbook2texi is a sgmlspl spec file that produces GNU Texinfo documents
       from DocBook documents.

       The program reads ESIS produced by nsgmls (or other SGML parsers)  from
       standard input.  Currently the document element must be Book, otherwise
       the results are undefined.

       Its output, the converted Texinfo  document,  is  written  to  standard
       output.

       The  file  basename.refs  will  also be created, which contains all the
       nodes in the document and  their  immediate  ’child’  nodes.   As  node
       processing  always require forward references, docbook2texi must be run
       twice for each document: the first time to build  the  references,  and
       the second to actually generate a valid document.

REQUIREMENTS

       The  SGMLSpm  package  from  CPAN.   This  package includes the sgmlspl
       script that is also needed.

LIMITATIONS

       Trying docbook2man on non-DocBook or  non-conformant  SGML  results  in
       undefined behavior. :-)

       This program is a slow, dodgy Perl script.

       This  program does not come close to supporting all the possible markup
       in DocBook, and may produce wrong output in some cases  with  supported
       markup.

TO DO

       · How  the  hell  do you represent a backslash (\) in Texinfo!!@?  I’ve
         tried \\ but TeX complains about it.

       · Fix breakages found in the test documents.

       · Add new element handling and fix existing handling.  Be robust.

       · Make it faster. I think most of the speed problems  so  far  is  with
         parsing ESIS.  Rewrite SGMLS.pm with C and/or get input directly from
         SP.

       · There are some dependencies  on  elements  occurring  when  they  are
         actually  optional  (according  to  the  DTD).   We  need to fix that
         (preferably) or prominently state the requirements.

       · Allow other more common document elements.

       · Separate out node referencing to a separate script.  Not  only  would
         it  make  it faster/easier to maintain because it’s separate from the
         main code, but also I would like  it  to  evolve  into  an  automatic
         DocBook ToC generator.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published  by  the
       Free  Software  Foundation;  either  version 2, or (at your option) any
       later version.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
       with  this  program; see the file COPYING.  If not, please write to the
       Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

                                 05 June 2008