[Fwd: Re: FrameMaker+SGML and XML data]

[Mark Barratt <markb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear list

Wim asked for private responses but there's obviously a lot of interest,
so here's what i wrote to him:


Wim

This can be done, but it is not pretty or fast. It requires a fairly
good understanding of XML/SGML and that you are (or have available) some
kind of programmer.

Exporting from a structured FM+SGML file to XML is straightforward and
reliable. By default it uses the UTF-8 character set (*not* ASCII). This
can be changed, though you shouldn't need to. It's a requirement of the
XML specification that applications understand UTF-8.

Frame does not validate the XML against an schema or DTD. On the other
hand, it outputs according to the Frame structure rules (EDD) you've set
up, so if it's a valid document according to Frame, it should be valid
against the XML schema which you've built to echo the EDD.

You simply can't import XML files into FM+SGML (or ordinary Frame
either). This is not necessarily the end of the story, given that Frame
is the best existing product for formatting for print from structured
data - it may be worth going through some hoops to *make* it work.

In general this means turning the XML you want to import into valid
SGML. You should be able to do this (or get it done by a programmer) in
Perl or Python without too much pain, but you'll probably need to do a
script for each class of document you work on. You'll also need an SGML
DTD.

In theory you should be able to do this sort of thing in XSLT, but I've
only got to page 8 of the book, so I have no idea how(!)

Depending on the database you are using, it may be simpler to get the
database to export SGML rather than XML.

If there's any of this taht's not clear, please tell me.

best,

-- 
Mark Barratt
Text Matters
phone +44 (0)118 986 8313
fax +44 (0)118 931 3743
email markb@textmatters.com
web http://www.textmatters.com

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