Re: New \setup... / sgml processing

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Hi Michal and Berend, 

Concerning sgml or more general ml processing, I can say that for some
years now I've tried several approached to this. Basically, there are the
following alternatives, all of which I've implemented with more or less
success: 

1 convert the <> things into \begML[command][args] \endML[command] things
and provide ways to handle the command
2 directly let tex interpret <> things and map those to tex commands
3 use an xsl processor (xt, perl) and an xsl style sheet to convert the
file to one with tex commands

None of these methos is complicated to implement. There should be methods
for handling and mapping sttributes, picking up arguments, either delimited
or not, and most complicated of all, handle nested delimited commands,
[needed for nested tables]. 

Now, if one has complete control over the input, it's not so much a
problem, but take for instance html, where one find all kind of strange
usages (think of dl's with one dt and many dd's) you should really have
access to all kind of trickery. 

The best way so far seems to be 

(1) convert the input into a more robust intermediate format
(2) process the resulting data directly

which is why I'm currently playing with something 

(1) define basic transformation in the tex style [<> => tex] 
(2) generate xsl style sheets that handle the transformation into tex
(3) if needed convert documents at runtime, which can then even be done
under different regimes
(4) provide methods to handle delimited and grouped commands

if there is enoigh interest for this, we may consider starting a discussion
on this. 

Hans   

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                                                  Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
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