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Re: How to structure XSL stylesheets for chunking andnon-chunking


> From: Dan York <dyork@e-smith.com>
> 
> Question for those of you working with XSL stylesheets.... for both
> my work here at e-smith/Mitel and also some of the stuff I do with the
> Linux Documentation Project, I need to generate both chunked and 
> non-chunked HTML files from various DocBook files and I need a 
> customization layer to modify certain settings in Norm's XSL stylesheets.
> 
> With SGML/DSSSL, it seems chunking was handled by the *processor*, so
> we all simply passed (open)jade the "-V nochunks" option when we did
> NOT want chunking. The DSSSL customization layer could work for both.
> 
> With XML/XSL, chunking is handled by the *stylesheet*, so there is now
> a need for two stylesheets - one for chunking and one for not.  However,
> basically everything in the two stylesheets is the same. What is different
> is whether the stylesheet calls Norm's 'html/docbook.xsl' (non-chunking)
> or 'html/chunk.xsl' (chunking).
> 
> So the question really is - how do you structure a customization layer
> to sit on top of Norm's stylesheets?
> 
> The solution I have come up with actually uses *three* stylesheets.  
> 
> I put all my customizations in an XSL stylesheet called
> 'e-smith-common.xsl'. This stylesheet does NOT do an <xsl:import> to
> Norm's XSL stylesheets.  It just has all my customizations.
> 
> I then have two other stylesheets. One is called simply 'e-smith.xsl'
> and has the contents:
> 
>   <?xml version="1.0"?>
>   <xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform";
>                   version="1.0">
> 
>   <xsl:import href="/usr/share/sgml/docbook-xsl-1.41/html/docbook.xsl"/>
>   <xsl:import href="e-smith-common.xsl"/>
> 
>   </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> The other stylesheet, 'e-smith-chunk.xsl', is the same as the above
> except that it imports 'chunk.xsl' instead of 'docbook.xsl'.  Both of
> these essentially import the appropriate XSL file from Norm and then
> import e-smith-common.xsl.  FYI, I used <xsl:import> instead of
> <xsl:include> in case I later decided that I wanted to override
> e-smith-common.xsl in one or the other of these files.
> 
> So to use them, I just call the appropriate stylesheet. To generate
> a single page:
> 
>   $ xsltproc -o sample.html /usr/share/sgml/e-smith.xsl sample.xml
> 
> To generate multiple pages:
> 
>   $ xsltproc /usr/share/sgml/e-smith-chunk.xsl sample.xml
> 
> It all works fine, and there is no difference between the files generated
> this way and those I generated from my single larger stylesheets before.
> 
> So I have a system that works... why I am asking the question? 
> Well, does anyone have a better way to do this?  Is there any way to 
> NOT have to have two separate stylesheets for chunking or non-chunking?
> Is there a way I can have *one* call and call it differently?
> 
> Or is the solution I have come up with the best way to do it?
> 
> Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

I came up with essentially the same solution once I
realized you cannot do conditional imports in XSL.
I'll also be curious to hear of other solutions.

In the current architecture of the DocBook stylesheets,
chunking itself is a customization layer. I believe it would
be possible to rewrite the main stylesheets to implement
the chunk/no-chunk behavior based on a global parameter
and proper attention to XSL modes.  Perhaps Norm
can comment on why he did it as a customization layer.

bobs
Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
Caldera International, Inc.                 fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@caldera.com

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