[docbook] Xi:includes and Entity Parameters

[Dermot O'H <dermot.ohalloran@gmail.com>]

Hi all, 

I've got a DocBook guide comprised of chapters maintained in individual
files that are imported using xi:includes:

<book>
    <title>My Book</title>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-1.xml"/>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-2.xml"/>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-3.xml"/>
 </book>

As you can see, all included files are in the guide's own root directory.
I've also defined shared text entities within a file called entities.ent
located in the guide's root directory aswell: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd"; [
<!ENTITY % myents SYSTEM "entities.ent" >
%myents;
]>

<book>
    <title>My Book</title>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-1.xml"/>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-2.xml"/>
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="chapter-3.xml"/>
 </book>

Each xi:include file must contain the above parameter entity declaration and
reference in its DOCTYPE - this is fine by me as it's only in a few cases
and is very manageable.

Now, I also wish to xi:include a common chapter located within a global
directory. I do this as follows:

...
    <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude";
href="../../global/common-chapter.xml"/>
...

The problem is that if I try to reference one of the entities (e.g.
&productname; ) within the common-chapter.xml file it will not resolve due
to the way xi:inlcude works: the common-chapter.xml file will expect the
entities.ent file to be located within its root directory.(i.e.
"../../global/entities.ent") and not in the guide's root directory (where
the entities.xml file does reside).

Is there a way around this problem? I am restricted to using relative paths
due to our build system and the different OS environments it works in. It's
not possible for me to reference an entities file via an absolute path such
as http://myserver/entities.ent. Again, this is due to our build system and
the way we use version control.

Is there some way to stop the included common-chapter.xml from resolving the
entities.ent file relative to its location and use the location of the root
guide instead? Or perhaps an alternative method of importing a global file
that resolves entities based on the guide doing the importing?

Thanks!

D.
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