[Doc-SIG] Producing output

Moore, Paul Paul.Moore@atosorigin.com
Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:32:09 +0100


From: David Goodger [mailto:goodger@users.sourceforge.net]
> Any and all help is appreciated!

OK, looks like I accidentally volunteered myself :-)

> > Personally (check with David for a more informed opinion!) I'd say
> > that it would not hurt to have an alternative effort looking at
> > producing LaTeX or PDF output from a DPS document
> 
> Definitely. The more the merrier, and the better the end product will
> be. Each output format has its own requirements from its input, and
> without multiple implementations we can't generalize.

OK. As my interest is with the output side of things, I guess I should work
on that. So I need to grab the necessary bits of code to take a RST document
and generate the intermediate bits, and look at writing an output backend
onto that.

Sounds fair enough.

I grabbed the latest daily snapshot of the RST and DPS projects. Looks like
that is enough to start with. Is there anything else I need? I just picked
up Tibs' pydps stuff as well. I can't work out (yet) if that's also
relevant.

> > I have some ideas on the *form* that an output parser should take
> > ... [but] I haven't had feedback from David about what he thinks of
> > this,
> 
> Yes, apologies. The parser itch is close to being completely scratched
> (code anyway), after which I'll turn my attention to other itches.
> I'll scratch the parser internal docs itch gradually, especially
> once the code has proven itself mature.

I'll do some scratching of the output itch, but my biggest itch at the
moment is for documentation of the internal phases (parser, intermediate
representation, output?) and the data structures used to communicate between
them. Unfortunately, this feels like one of those itches in the small of
your pack - really annoying, but needs someone else to scratch it for you
:-)

I'll go code-diving and see what I come up with, though.

> > or how he sees different formatters integrating into DPS in
> > detail (I suspect he hasn't *got* detailed ideas yet).
> 
> Your suspicions are once again well founded. We'll take what you've
> written, and I'll work on another output format myself, and we'll
> determine the API through what works in practice.

As I say, I'll look at something, too. Probably (La)TeX, as I can get PDF
from that. But I'm low on tuits, so it may take a while before I get
anything useful...

Paul.