Re: [docbook-apps] xlstproc questions (was: CSS begging)

[DavePawson <davep@dpawson.co.uk>]

Rowland, Larry wrote:
> We use Apache Ant to control builds.  It is possible to use it directly to invoke a transform (using the XSLT task).  By default, Xalan is bound as the XSLT transform engine, but it can be replaced with Saxon fairly easily.  A big advantage it has is working cross-platform, which is important because we have users on Linux and HP-UX in addition to Windows.  You can also execute command on the command line using the exec task. 
> 
> Everything is based on the idea of targets that perform specific function and are built of tasks.  It is pretty straightforward for simple things like a single transform invocation, but provides enough sophistication to handle sequencing processing transforms and packaging up results into ZIP files with the HTML and the image files combined into a destination directory and then collected into a ZIP file.
> 
> Another thing useful is it is XML, so the same editors used for content can be used to modify the file that controls the build process.  We also have some build processes for advanced functions that create a new build file on the fly using XSLT and then transfer control to it for a part of the build.  This makes it very powerful.
> 
> For people who don't like the command line, we provide simple .bat files that invoke specific targets in the build (targets are what get executed in Ant) so that the user can just double-click on build.bat and build-to-validate.bat without having to go to the command line on Windows.  Most UNIX users don't feel the need for shell scripts to launch the Ant builds and prefer to do so from the command line to have the added flexibility that the command line gives of defining some parameters to the build when it is invoked.
> 
> The manual for Apache is available online at http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html
> 
> In the left-hand navigation, click on "Ant Tasks," then "Core Tasks" and "XSLT/Style" will be at the bottom of the navigation column.
> 
> Larry Rowland

I've now finished my first pass at a tutorial using ant.
I'll be moving it on my website, but for now it is at
http://www.dpawson.co.uk/docbooksetup/html/

It contains a fairly comprehensive docbook ant script, also functionally
duplicated as a bash script.

HTH



regards

-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk