Re: gnome-db2html3 design questions

[Daniel Veillard <veillard redhat com>]

> For now, I'm using Norman Walsh's XSL DocBook stylesheets,
> but we will add a GNOME customization layer.
> 
> questions:
> 
> 1) Should we create a dependency on an external DocBook package for
> installation of the dtd or install our own?
> 
>  a) If we create a dependency on an external DocBook package, how do we
>  determine where it is installed? Catalogs are an option, but libxml
>  does not support them, so we would have to write our own catalog
>  support into gnome-db2html3. DV assures me this is easy. I have not
>  yet looked into doing it, and nothing is easy for me. :-)

  Well i have looked at the way it's done on Red Hat 7.1
  There is a DocBook package for the XML Dtds : docbook-dtd41-xml
stored in /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.1 with an SGML like catalog
Implementing support for SGML catalogs in libxml could be done fairly
easilly maybe I can work on this.

>  b) If we install our own, where should we put it? The LSB has a
>  proposed location: /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.1.2/
>  (http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/gLSB/gLSB/sgmlr002.html)

  I personally find this stupid because it ought to be under 
/usr/share/xml/docbook/...
  But should be done once we have a standardized XML catalog format
(there is a few proposal but not one single has emerged yet).

> 2) Same question for the xsl - do we install our own copy of Norman
> Walsh's stylesheets or depend on an external package?
> 
>  a) Again, if we create a dependency, how do we determine where it is
>  installed?

  it's a good question :-) 
Actually from the document you can get the PUBLIC DTD identifier,
getting from there to a predefined DTD location for this ID is
a simple association to maintain.

>  b) If we install our own, where should we put it? The LSB has
>  a proposed answer: /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xsl-stylesheets-1.12/

  possibly same feeling on my part.

> 3) If we install our own stuff, what effect would use of LSB file
> locations have on non-Linux systems? How do we do this in a way that
> will work for them?

  I suggest to follow the LSB proposal and use an SGML catalog for DTD,
until we get something defined specifically for XML.
  For the stylesheet, I suggest using a DTD PUBLIC ID <-> XSL set
of predefined relation, noting that there is a standard mechanism for
associating a stylesheet which would be to add
  
<?xml-stylesheet href="file:///usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.1.2/..." type="application/xml" ?>

  http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-stylesheet/

  But I don't suggest to use it in this case.

Daniel

-- 
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veillard redhat com  | libxml Gnome XML XSLT toolkit  http://xmlsoft.org/
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