Re: multipage html output

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

Orm Finnendahl <orm.finnendahl@selma.hfmdk-frankfurt.de> writes:

>> Or we can make `org-export-as' retain INFO channel when returning the
>> output. Then, we can make `org-export-to-file' make use of the INFO
>> channel to decide the file name. This way, there will be no need to
>> decide the file name before running the parsing.
>
> Are you sure that works? org-export-as currently returns a string. It
> could in addition return the parse-tree in info, plus the smaller
> parts which need to be exported, but we should not forget, that
> org-export-as is an inferior function called from org-export-to-file
> or org-export-to-buffer. But maybe I misunderstand what you mean.

That's exactly what I mean.

> Here is what is needed from my perspective:
>
> 1. parse the tree of the whole document
>
> 2. split the tree up.
>
> 3. call the export backend on each of the split parts to generate the
>    string and save it to disk or do whatever is appropriate.
>
> For me the most natural way would be that a central function
> (export-according-to-org-property-list) does the parsing and then call
> the different backend functions to export according to their rules
> (the trees being converted in the central function or in backend
> code).
>
> If toplevel functions like org-export-to-file use org-export-as, than
> org-export-as should only be concerned with generating the string but
> not with reparsing.

Sorry, but I do not understand your concern.

> Alternatively we can do the conversion to a string in the central
> function as now with org-export-as, but there still needs to be a
> mechanism to generate the different files for multipage output and
> call the export backend on them to save them or whatever. Or what did
> you have in mind?

What I have in mind is that `org-export-as' will return a list of
strings + INFO. INFO will contain data about which files to use for
saving the strings. Then, the caller does the saving and whatever is
necessary. If we write to files from `org-export-as' it will be a
massive breaking change in the expected behavior.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>