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DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1)					  DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1)

NAME
     docbook2man-spec.pl - convert DocBook RefEntries to man pages

SYNOPSIS
     sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl

     nsgmls [ sgml document ]| sgmlspl docbook2man-spec.pl

DESCRIPTION
     docbook2man  is a sgmlspl spec file that produced man pages (using the -man
     macros) from DocBook RefEntry markup.

     The program reads ESIS produced by nsgmls	(or  other  SGML  parsers)  from
     standard input.  Markup not found in RefEntry is discarded.

     Its  output, the converted man pages, are written to the current directory.
     If RefMeta information is not specified in a RefEntry, then  the  man  page
     will be written to standard output.

     The  file manpage.links will also be created, which contains any aliases of
     the manpages generated.  This file is in the format:

     <man page> <alias
     manpage>

     The manpage.refs file keeps track of XRef references.  Note that if the in-
     put document has any forward references, then docbook2man may  have  to  be
     invoked twice (the first time updating manpage.refs) to resolve them.

REQUIREMENTS
     The  SGMLSpm  package  from CPAN.	This package includes the sgmlspl script
     that is also needed.

LIMITATIONS
     Trying docbook2man on non-DocBook or non-conformant SGML results  in  unde-
     fined behavior. :-)

     This program is a slow, dodgy Perl script.

     This  program  does not come close to supporting all the possible markup in
     DocBook, and may produce wrong output in some cases with supported markup.

TO DO
     Obvious stuff:

     *
       Fix  docbook2man  breakages  found  in  the  test  documents,  especially
       weird.sgml.

     *
       Add new element handling and fix existing handling.  Be robust.

     *
       Produce cleanest, readable man output as possible (unlike some other con-
       verters).  Follow Linux man(7) convention.  As conversion to man pages is
       usually	not  done very often, it is better to be slower/more complicated
       than to produce wrong output.  Also if someone wants  to  give  up  using
       DocBook	for  whatever  reason,	the last-converted man pages can then be
       maintained manually.

     *
       Make it faster. I think most of the speed problems so far is with parsing
       ESIS.  Rewrite SGMLS.pm with C and/or get input directly from SP.

     *
       Support other (human) languages.  But what to do with non-ASCII charsets?
       SGMLSpm doesn't report them and roff does not grok them.  [Comment:  text
       after  enclosed	lists  (and  SS blocks) will break docbook2man] If we do
       this, more people can use DocBook.

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>

     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it un-
     der the terms of the GNU General Public License as published  by  the  Free
     Software  Foundation;  either version 2, or (at your option) any later ver-
     sion.

     You should have received a copy of the GNU  General  Public  License  along
     with  this program; see the file COPYING.	If not, please write to the Free
     Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

				11 February 2004	  DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL(1)

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