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docbook2man(1)			   docbook2X			docbook2man(1)

NAME
       docbook2man - Convert DocBook to	man pages

SYNOPSIS
       docbook2man [options] xml-document

DESCRIPTION
       docbook2man converts the	given DocBook XML document into	man pages.  By
       default,	the man	pages will be output to	the current directory.

       Only  the  refentry  content in the DocBook document is converted.  (To
       convert content outside of a refentry, stylesheet customization is  re-
       quired. See the docbook2X package for details.)

       The  docbook2man	 command is a wrapper script for a two-step conversion
       process.	 See the section "CONVERSION PROCESS" below for	details.

OPTIONS
       The available options are essentially the union	of  the	 options  from
       db2x_xsltproc(1)	and db2x_manxml(1).

       Some commonly-used options are listed below:

       --encoding=encoding
	      Sets the character encoding of the output.

       --string-param parameter=value
	      Sets  a stylesheet parameter (options that affect	how the	output
	      looks).  See "Stylesheet parameters" below  for  the  parameters
	      that can be set.

       --sgml Accept an	SGML source document as	input instead of XML.

       --solinks
	      Make stub	pages for alternate names for an output	man page.

   STYLESHEET PARAMETERS
       uppercase-headings
	      Brief. Make headings uppercase?

	      Default setting. 1 (boolean true)

	      Headings	in  man	page content should be or should not be	upper-
	      cased.

       manvolnum-cite-numeral-only
	      Brief. Man page section citation should use only the number

	      Default setting. 1 (boolean true)

	      When citing other	man pages, the man-page	section	is either giv-
	      en as is,	or has the letters stripped from it, citing  only  the
	      number  of  the section (e.g. section 3x becomes 3). This	option
	      specifies	which style.

       quotes-on-literals
	      Brief. Display quotes on literal elements?

	      Default setting. 0 (boolean false)

	      If true, render literal elements with quotes around them.

       show-comments
	      Brief. Display comment elements?

	      Default setting. 1 (boolean true)

	      If true, comments	will be	displayed,  otherwise  they  are  sup-
	      pressed.	 Comments  here	 refers	 to the	comment	element, which
	      will be renamed remark in	DocBook	V4.0, not  XML	comments  (<--
	      like this	-->) which are unavailable.

       function-parens
	      Brief. Generate parentheses after	a function?

	      Default setting. 0 (boolean false)

	      If  true,	 the  formatting  of a <function> element will include
	      generated	parenthesis.

       xref-on-link
	      Brief. Should link generate a cross-reference?

	      Default setting. 1 (boolean true)

	      Man pages	cannot render the hypertext links created by link.  If
	      this  option  is set, then the stylesheet	renders	a cross	refer-
	      ence to the target of the	link.  (This may reduce	clutter). Oth-
	      erwise, only the content of the link is rendered and the	actual
	      link itself is ignored.

       header-3
	      Brief. Third header text

	      Default setting. (blank)

	      Specifies	 the text of the third header of a man page, typically
	      the date for the man page. If empty, the date  content  for  the
	      refentry is used.

       header-4
	      Brief. Fourth header text

	      Default setting. (blank)

	      Specifies	 the text of the fourth	header of a man	page.  If emp-
	      ty, the refmiscinfo content for the refentry is used.

       header-5
	      Brief. Fifth header text

	      Default setting. (blank)

	      Specifies	the text of the	fifth header of	a man page.  If	empty,
	      the `manual name', that is, the title of the book	 or  reference
	      container	is used.

       default-manpage-section
	      Brief. Default man page section

	      Default setting. 1

	      The source document usually indicates the	sections that each man
	      page  should  belong to (with manvolnum in refmeta). In case the
	      source document does not indicate	man-page sections, this	option
	      specifies	the default.

       custom-localization-file
	      Brief. URI of XML	document containing custom localization	data

	      Default setting. (blank)

	      This parameter specifies the URI of  a  XML  document  that  de-
	      scribes  text  translations  (and	other locale-specific informa-
	      tion) that is needed by the stylesheet to	 process  the  DocBook
	      document.

	      The  text	translations pointed to	by this	parameter always over-
	      ride the default text translations (from the internal  parameter
	      localization-file).   If a particular translation	is not present
	      here, the	corresponding default translation is used as  a	 fall-
	      back.

	      This  parameter  is  primarily  for changing certain punctuation
	      characters used in formatting the	source document.  The settings
	      for punctuation characters are often specific to the source doc-
	      ument, but can also be dependent on the locale.

	      To not use custom	text translations, leave this parameter	as the
	      empty string.

       custom-l10n-data
	      Brief. XML document containing custom localization data

	      Default setting. document($custom-localization-file)

	      This parameter specifies the XML document	 that  describes  text
	      translations  (and  other	 locale-specific  information) that is
	      needed by	the stylesheet to process the DocBook document.

	      This parameter is	internal to the	stylesheet.  To	 point	to  an
	      external	XML document with a URI	or a file name,	you should use
	      the custom-localization-file parameter instead.

	      However, inside a	custom stylesheet (not	on  the	 command-line)
	      this  paramter  can be set to the	XPath expression document(''),
	      which will cause the custom translations directly	 embedded  in-
	      side the custom stylesheet to be read.

       author-othername-in-middle
	      Brief. Is	othername in author a middle name?

	      Default setting. 1

	      If  true,	 the othername of an author appears between the	first-
	      name and surname.	Otherwise, othername is	suppressed.

EXAMPLES
       $ docbook2man --solinks manpages.xml
       $ docbook2man --solinks --encoding=utf-8//TRANSLIT manpages.xml
       $ docbook2man --string-param header-4="Free Recode 3.6" document.xml
       .fi

CONVERSION PROCESS
   Converting to man pages
       DocBook documents are converted to man pages in two steps:

       1.  The DocBook source is converted by a	XSLT stylesheet	into an	inter-
	   mediate XML format, Man-XML.

	   Man-XML is simpler than DocBook and closer to the man page  format;
	   it is intended to make the stylesheets' job easier.

	   The	stylesheet  for	 this purpose is in xslt/man/docbook.xsl.  For
	   portability,	it should always be referred to	by the following URI:

	   http://docbook2x.sourceforge.net/latest/xslt/man/docbook.xsl

	   Run this stylesheet with db2x_xsltproc(1).

	   Customizing.	 You can also customize	the output  by	creating  your
	   own	XSLT stylesheet	-- changing parameters or adding new templates
	   -- and importing xslt/man/docbook.xsl.

       2.  Man-XML is converted	to the actual man pages	by db2x_manxml(1).

       The docbook2man command does both steps automatically, but if any prob-
       lems occur, you can see the errors more clearly if  you	do  each  step
       separately:

       $ db2x_xsltproc -s man mydoc.xml	-o mydoc.mxml
       $ db2x_manxml mydoc.mxml
       .fi

       Options to the conversion stylesheet are	described in
       the man-pages stylesheets
       reference.

       Pure XSLT conversion.
       An alternative to the db2x_manxml Perl script is	the XSLT
       stylesheet in
       xslt/backend/db2x_manxml.xsl.
       This stylesheet performs	a similar function
       of converting Man-XML to	actual man pages.
       It is useful if you desire a pure XSLT
       solution	to man-page conversion.
       Of course, the quality of the conversion	using this stylesheet
       will never be as	good as	the Perl db2x_manxml,
       and it runs slower.
       In particular, the pure XSLT version
       currently does not support tables in man	pages,
       but its Perl counterpart	does.

   Character set conversion
       When  translating  XML  to legacy ASCII-based formats with poor support
       for Unicode, such as man	pages and Texinfo, there is always the problem
       that Unicode characters in the source document also have	to  be	trans-
       lated somehow.

       A  straightforward  character set conversion from Unicode does not suf-
       fice, because  the  target  character  set,  usually  US-ASCII  or  ISO
       Latin-1,	do not contain common characters such as dashes	and direction-
       al  quotation marks that	are widely used	in XML documents. But document
       formatters (man and Texinfo) allow such characters to be	entered	 by  a
       markup escape: for example, \(lq	for the	left directional quote ".  And
       if  a  markup-level  escape  is not available, an ASCII transliteration
       might be	used: for example, using the ASCII less-than sign  <  for  the
       angle quotation mark <.

       So the Unicode character	problem	can be solved in two steps:

       1.  utf8trans(1), a program included in docbook2X, maps Unicode charac-
	   ters	to markup-level	escapes	or transliterations.

	   Since there is not necessarily a fixed, official mapping of Unicode
	   characters,	utf8trans  can	read in	user-modifiable	character map-
	   pings expressed in text files and apply them. (Unlike most  charac-
	   ter set converters.)

	   In	charmaps/man/roff.charmap  and	charmaps/man/texi.charmap  are
	   character maps that may be used for man-page	 and  Texinfo  conver-
	   sion.   The	programs db2x_manxml(1)	and db2x_texixml(1) will apply
	   these character maps, or another character  map  specified  by  the
	   user, automatically.

       2.  The	rest  of the Unicode text is converted to some other character
	   set (encoding).  For	example, a French document with	accented char-
	   acters (such	as e) might be converted to ISO	Latin 1.

	   This	step is	applied	after utf8trans	character mapping,  using  the
	   iconv(1)   encoding	 conversion  tool.   Both  db2x_manxml(1)  and
	   db2x_texixml(1) can	call  iconv(1)	automatically  when  producing
	   their output.

FILES
       /usr/local/share/docbook2X/xslt/man/docbook.xsl
       /usr/local/share/docbook2X/xslt/backend/db2x_manxml.xsl
       /usr/local/share/docbook2X/xslt/catalog.xml
       /usr/local/share/docbook2X/charmaps/roff.charmap
       /usr/local/share/docbook2X/charmaps/roff.charmap.xml

       The above files are distributed and installed by	the docbook2X package.

NOTES
       The  docbook2man	 or  the docbook2texi command described	in this	manual
       page come from the docbook2X package.  It should	not be	confused  with
       the command of the same name from the obsoleted docbook-utils package.

LIMITATIONS
        Internally there is one long pipeline of programs which your document
	 goes  through.	 If any	segment	of the pipeline	fails (even trivially,
	 like from mistyped program options), the resulting errors can be dif-
	 ficult	to decipher -- in this case, try  running  the	components  of
	 docbook2X separately.

AUTHOR
       Steve Cheng <stevecheng@users.sourceforge.net>.

SEE ALSO
       db2x_xsltproc(1), db2x_manxml(1), utf8trans(1)

       The docbook2X manual (in	Texinfo	or HTML	format)	fully describes	how to
       convert DocBook to man pages and	Texinfo.

       Up-to-date information about this program can be	found at the docbook2X
       Web site	<http://docbook2x.sourceforge.net/> .

docbook2X 0.8.8			 3 March 2007			docbook2man(1)

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