Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Country codes

[Bob Stayton <bobs at caldera dot com>]

On Fri, Oct 04, 2002 at 01:37:03PM -0300, jaccoud@petrobras.com.br wrote:
> Hi
> 
> There seems to be a discrepancy around the proper way to encode country
> coudes and their expected processing in XML Docbook and the XSL
> stylesheets. This matter already surfaced an year ago, but I got into
> trouble nevertheless, so I thought to bring this discussion up again.
> Please help me deal with it.
> 
> 1) Docbook XML DTD does not declares the xml:lang attribute, so we must use
> lang. I wonder why. (It is not a namespace issue, since none is involved.)
> 
> 2) lang should use ISO 3166 codes, that mandate the form "pt-BR", instead
> of "pt_BR" or "pt_br". Norm confirmed that in
> http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200107/msg00076.html.
> 
> 3) The XSL stylesheets process my <article lang="pt-BR"> using the
> common/pt.xml file, which is not correct. "pt_BR" doesn't work either, only
> the value "pt_br" makes it behave correctly. Looks like the atribute value
> must match the filename exactly.
> 
> 4) The language specification does not fuind its way into the HTML
> generated code.  I thought it would be very nice if it did, so I tried to
> override some templates that generate it, but I would have to translate the
> wrong "pt_br" to the correct "pt-BR" to use it. Not very nice, since it
> should be correct already.
> 
> ... any suggestions?

Yes, file two feature requests on the Docbook SourceForge
site, one to permit variations in the lang code in input, and
one to insert language codes in HTML output.

The stylesheet lang handling should certainly normalize
the language codes.
--

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