Re: DOCBOOK: sgml vs xml

[Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz>]

Ben Hratshorne wrote:

> I was confused by this.  Though I understood the difference between
> SGML/XML and DSSSL/XSL (you're right it was a typo), I thought that if
> you use SGML, you must use DSSSL, and if you use XML, you must use XSL.
> I was unaware you could use DSSSL with XML.  Is the converse true - can
> you use XSL with SGML?

No. You must first convert SGML into XML. You can use tools like sx for
this task.
 
> Can any of you suggest a web page that might have the same document in
> XML and SGML, and show differences in both the document and in how to
> compile it?

The biggest difference is that XML doesn't support minimalization
features of SGML which allow you to not close some tags and use other
markup shortcuts.
 
> But...  at this point I have one (mostly) complete manual in SGML.  Any
> tips on what I might need to change to switch it over, besides the first
> line?  I think the only tricky part is that I have a couple of
> conditionally compiled sections:
> 
> <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
> 
> <!-- change INCLUDE below to IGNORE and none of the sections marked
>   %internal / versoin2 will be included when you compile the document.
> -->
> <!entity % internal "INCLUDE">
> <!entity % version2 "IGNORE">
> 
> ]>
> 
> <book>
>  ...
>  ...
> <![%version2; [
>   <section id="installtunnel">
>   ...
>   ...
> ]>

This is not supported by XML. But you can substitute this by profiling
http://www.sagehill.net/xml/docbookxsl/SpecialHandling.html#Profiling
 
> Will those have to be completely redone in XSL?  Though I conceptually
> understand the XML/XSL/DSSSL thing now, I'm still fuzzy on
> implementation details.

Many XSL stylesheets parameters are very similar to those known from
DSSSL. It is usually not so hard to port DSSSL customizations to XSL.

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  Jirka Kosek  	                     
  e-mail: jirka@kosek.cz
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