Re: libxml2: Wrong separator in XML_CATALOG_FILES?

[Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com>]

Hello Hartmut,

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:27 PM, Hartmut Goebel
<h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I just discovered that libxml2 sets the search-path-specification for
> variable "XML_CATALOG_FILES" using space as separator, which is very
> uncommon. The documentation for libxml2 does not state which separator
> to use, while the docbook-tutorial [1] has an example using colons.
>
> So I'm curious whether the space is correct.
>
> [1] <http://tdg.docbook.org/tdg/5.0/appa.html>

From my experiences with the udisks package, the XML_CATALOG_FILES
entries should be separated by space. I could find at least one source
which said it should be spaces [1], and another one suggested that
both the column and spaces should work, at least on Unix [2]. I guess
to get a definitive answer one would have to dive in the code of
libxml2.

I suggest we stick to what is known to work, i.e., using the space as
the separator for XML_CATALOG_FILES.

[1] Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML, by Elliotte
Rusty Harold (https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=GBT61nOT058C&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=xsltproc+XML+CATALOG+FILES+space+separated&source=bl&ots=UHr4NuXm1C&sig=9GgLW41OUmNOC9cRvyNyM6d3lYw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq1tu2jp_TAhXCx7wKHazGDpMQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q&f=false)

[2] Discussion on Gnome mailing list:
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2002-October/msg00028.html