Re: No More SGML

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 11:32, Dave Malcolm wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 02:27, Shaun McCance wrote:
> > Daniel is removing the DocBook SGML parser from libxml2.  Consequently,
> > I'll be removing the usage of said parser from Yelp.  The 2.5.x series
> > will no longer support DocBook SGML.  So if there are any SGML docs left
> > out there, now would be a good time to convert to XML.
> > 
> 
> Possibly heading off-topic, but can I ask what tools people use to do
> this conversion?
> 
> Within Conglomerate I've got an SGML->XML importer.  It's a wrapper
> around sgml2xml, but it doesn't work particularly well.
> 
> So I'd welcome suggestions on how to improve this...
> 
> If you're feeling particularly nice, please add them as comments to this
> bug:
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=122651

Probably the best hope of an automated SGML->XML conversion is to use
the DocBook parser in the current libxml2.  It will parse into the same
internal structures used for XML.  Then just save that out to file.  If
libxml2 fails, then your best friend will be emacs.  A clever awk user
could probably manage to script some of it.

But this is all for a one-shot transformation.  The idea here is that
you have SGML, you convert it to XML, and you throw the SGML away.

I think you're talking about having Conglomerate able to import SGML. 
My suggestion is to give up.  The whole problem with SGML is that it's
just bloody impossible to write parsers that work.  XML was created
specifically to address this.

Really, it's passed time people just stopped using SGML.  XML has been
such a buzzword for so long, I'm surprised that people are still using
stuff like DocBook SGML or HTML sans the X.  SGML has been a burden on
programmers (and everyone else) for too long.

Sorry if this came off rantish.  I didn't mean to flame you, Dave.  If
anything, I want to make your life easier by removing that ugly SGML
cloud from over your head.  :)

--
Shaun