Re: [docbook-apps] computeroutput vs screen vs xmllint

[Stefan Hinz <stefan.hinz@oracle.com>]

Bonjour Mathieu,

>    We are internally using different docbook editors (vi, emacs, serna
> and xmlmind). To some extent, we would like to preserve a nice and
> clear history of revision of our XML files in SVN (subversion). For
> this we use a script based on xmllint --format to reformat to a unique
> presentation. This has work quite well until today. Could someone
> please let me know if the following situation is an issue with either
> XML or docbook itself:
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
> "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd";>
> <article>
>    <section>
>      <title>Introduction</title>
>      <para>Before</para>
>      <screen><computeroutput>a.txt
> b.txt
> </computeroutput>
> </screen>
>      <para>After</para>
>    </section>
> </article>
>
> while xmllint --format prefers:
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
> "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd";>
> <article>
>    <section>
>      <title>Introduction</title>
>      <para>Before</para>
>      <screen>
>        <computeroutput>a.txt
> b.txt
> </computeroutput>
>      </screen>
>      <para>After</para>
>    </section>
> </article>

The latter is wrong. Stuff within "verbatim" containers such as <screen> 
or <programlisting> shouldn't be re-formatted at all, but rather 
preserved as is.

I'd suggest using Paul DuBois' XML Formatter which does what it's 
supposed to do. It's included in many Linux distros already, but if it's 
not in yours (or if you're not using Linux) you can find it here:

http://www.kitebird.com/software/xmlformat/

> This leads to differences in the fo output with extra spaces. So how
> does one handles such corner cases ?

By formatting (or not formatting) properly. :-)

--
Cheers,

Stefan Hinz <stefan.hinz@oracle.com>, MySQL Documentation Manager

Phone: +49-30-82702940, Fax: +49-30-82702941, http://dev.mysql.com/doc

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