From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Oliver Scholz Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Changes to Texinfo DTD Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:37:16 +0100 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200310280126.h9S1Q9N16202@f7.net> <20031028105102.GA7330@dirtyweb.penguinpowered.com> <20031030104238.GA11503@dirtyweb.penguinpowered.com> <87vfps2x9r.fsf@ID-87814.user.dfncis.de> <878ymfdsx9.fsf@mail.jurta.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1069325449 28928 80.91.224.253 (20 Nov 2003 10:50:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 10:50:49 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Thu Nov 20 11:50:46 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AMmOc-0007VJ-00 for ; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:50:46 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AMmOc-0003Dt-00 for ; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:50:46 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AMnLP-0001LC-7H for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 06:51:31 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AMnKP-0001Ht-HA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 06:50:29 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.24) id 1AMnJN-0000wh-DT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 06:49:56 -0500 Original-Received: from [213.165.64.20] (helo=mail.gmx.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AMn9y-0006r8-7y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 20 Nov 2003 06:39:42 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 13907 invoked by uid 65534); 20 Nov 2003 10:38:14 -0000 Original-Received: from dialin-145-254-195-100.arcor-ip.net (EHLO HERMES) (145.254.195.100) by mail.gmx.net (mp009) with SMTP; 20 Nov 2003 11:38:14 +0100 X-Authenticated: #1497658 Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-Reply-To: (Robert J. Chassell's message of "Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:03:10 +0000 (UTC)") X-Attribution: os X-Face: "HgH2sgK|bfH$; PiOJI6|qUCf.ve<51_Od(%ynHr?=>znn#~#oS>",F%B8&\vus),2AsPYb -n>PgddtGEn}s7kH?7kH{P_~vu?]OvVN^qD(L)>G^gDCl(U9n{:d>'DkilN!_K"eNzjrtI4Ya6; Td% IZGMbJ{lawG+'J>QXPZD&TwWU@^~A}f^zAb[Ru;CT(UA]c& User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) Emacs/22.0.0 (windows-nt) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:17957 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:17957 "Robert J. Chassell" writes: > Oliver Scholz wrote: > > So I have offered to hack the standalone info reader so that it > would support the XML format in the same way that I have chosen in > my patch. But I got not response so far. > > Heh... that might be a good idea. However, I don't think I know of > anyone who uses the standalone Info reader; they all use Emacs Info > instead.... So I cannot give you any useful advice on this. My proposal is to keep the current text/plain info format as an internal representation in the standalone info reader. The reader would then check whether a particular file is in the text/plain info format or in the XML format. If the former: business as usual. If the latter, it would convert this XML to plain/text with the necessary ^_ and the necessary "tags:" section and whatever else is required *on the fly*. That's the way the patch works that I sent earlier. Since I won't touch the code of the standalone reader at any other place, I would need advice mainly on the specification of the current info format. IMO this change is the easiest and the least intrusive. I believe that the transition to a new format would be painless this way. You could have both the current (then old) info format and the new XML format in /usr/info and other directories at the same time. The info reader would just DTRT. As I said: writing a non-conforming parser for a particular, machine-generated XML in Emacs Lisp is very, very easy. So info.el should probably do something slightly more sophisticated with the XML format and provide more bells&whistles. Or at least we could add the bells&whistles at a later time. I am not familiar with the code of info.el and I don't want to deal with it right now. But I'd offer to implement any API for dealing with the XML that somebody who wants to hack info.el would specify. So. I have stated my cause now. :-) Oliver -- Oliver Scholz 30 Brumaire an 212 de la Révolution Taunusstr. 25 Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! 60329 Frankfurt a. M. http://www.jungdemokratenhessen.de Tel. (069) 97 40 99 42 http://www.jdjl.org