Re: About multiple output documents from a single XML/SGML processed document

[Paul Tyson <ptyso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Didier PH Martin wrote:
> 
...
> 
> The proposal on the table is to add a new characteristic to the
> simple-page-sequence object to allow the creation of a new flow object tree
> (i.e. a new output document). The characteristic could be called:
> 
> output-file-name: "name.xxx" This characteristic value is a string. The new
> document name is appended to the actual output directory path (ex: c:\my
> dir1\dir2\name.xxx" or "usr/data/dir1/dir2/name.xxx")
> 
... 
> Any comments? suggestions?
> 

Three suggestions:
1. Use entities to specify output.  This might require up to 4
characteristics: output-entity-name, output-entity-system-id,
output-entity-public-id, output-entity-notation.  In the simplest case,
output-entity-system-id could be interpreted as "output-file-name".  In
more complex cases this would allow a back-end to emit a valid SGML
instance with required entity declarations, or to communicate with
storage systems besides simple file systems.  In the intermediate case,
it might be able to use jade's input entity manager for output as well
(for example, to interpret formal system identifiers or consult catalog
files).

2. Put these characteristics on all flow objects that can appear in the
root flow object: page-sequence, simple-page-sequence, and scroll.

3. Add a feature name to allow use of these characteristics.

Three considerations:
1. What about a characteristic to specify clobbering or appending-to an
existing storage unit?
2. It might be convenient to package up all these characteristics into a
new DSSSL object, maybe called an "output-entity".  Then you could have
some operations like output-entity? to determine if the object is one,
and output-entity-exists? to see if there's a file that already exists,
and (output-entity foo system-id: "c:\bar\foo.tex") to create one.
3.  The output-entity object might be useful in the transformation
language also.

I agree with the other contributors that this would be a very useful
feature.

Later,
Paul Tyson


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