Re: [xslt] Using catalog files on Windows

[Igor Zlatkovic <igor stud fh-frankfurt de>]

Hi there.

> > Documentation says that root XML catalog file should be in
> > file:///etc/xml/catalog. Where is this file expected on Windows box? (I
> > tried c:\etc\xml, but it doesn't work.)
>
>   Well I don't know what file:///etc/xml/catalog means on Windows ...
> possibly \etc\xml\catalog i.e. on the same drive as the current one.

Yes, if you strip the 'file://' off before passing the path to fopen, then
it will be \etc\xml\catalog on the current drive. If you pass the whole
thing to fopen, fopen will return NULL.

>   The code of the catalog is actually libxml related not libxslt specific.
> Igor, the Windows port maintainer, can probably enligthen us about what
should
> be the proper path and the associated URL.

Igor, the Windows port maintainer and spare-time prophet, sees the trouble
rolling in from the horizon :-)

Unix /etc directory is a place where all system software stores its
configuration data which is human-readable, editable with any text editor
and if one wants the format details, typing 'man <configfile>' is sufficient
in most cases.

Windows system software prefers storing its configuration data in the system
registry, machine-readable, editable solely through the regedit utility (or
programming) and if one wants the format details, many hours of
experimenting are sufficient in few cases, nothing helps in most. At least
most things are sorted by an easy-to-remember 32-digit hexadecimal UUID :-)

I can think of only one location which would be halfway Windows-apropriate
place to store catalogs per default. There is an environment variable set by
the system named 'CommonProgramFiles'. Per default it points to 'C:\Program
Files\Common Files' and some rule says that people should create a
subdirectory there and store their common data in it. This would bring us to
'C:\Program Files\Common Files\XML\Catalogs', as a replacement for
/etc/xml/catalogs. Hm... A proper default fallback it is, this place, but it
contains spaces in its path, which gives two problems. For one, trouble when
one wants a corresponding URL. For two, this place is not static. If you use
Windows in a language different to english, this place has a different name,
it is translated. In addition to that, Admin can put it where she pleases.
Hardcoding it won't help, one must read the environment variable to find out
where it actually is.

>   Well you can try to guess the valid filename or URL which will work
> and set them as environment variables SGML_CATALOG_FILES or
XML_CATALOG_FILES
> The routine will end up using open() to load the file.

This is good. I would suggest using these environment variables. Doing a

  set XML_CATALOG_FILES=%CommonProgramFiles%\XML\Catalogs

would be a simple solution with the lowest degree of trouble. This would
place things where they belong and work, even if one must install this on
thousands of clients with different CommonProgramFiles location.

Ciao
Igor