Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: which DocBook in DOCTYPE?

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.COM> was heard to say:
| 3) Check out every file and update the DOCTYPE to the latest
| version, and repeat with each new DTD version.  Fortunately,
| the PUBLIC ID only includes the first and second version digits
| (4.1), not the third (4.1.2).

Huh? Did I mess up in public somewhere? The public ID should be

  -//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN

| 4) Make your DOCTYPE a constant, use the catalog to map
| it to the latest DTD, and fix any files that break when
| you update the DTD.
| 
| I've chosen #4 and use a simple DOCTYPE in my files:
| 
| <!DOCTYPE book SYSTEM "docbook.dtd">
| 
| I let the catalog map SYSTEM "docbook.dtd" to the location
| of latest version of the DTD.

The only wrinkle I see with this plan is that XML tools seem to change
the SYSTEM identifier into an absolute URI before querying the
catalog. Very annoying, but in XML, perhaps "the right thing".

So I stick with SYSTEM identifiers that point explicitly to web versions
of the DTD or I always use a public identifier (even if I know I'm going
to lie like a rug later :-)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Waste no more time arguing what a
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | good man should be. Be
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | one.--Marcus Aurelius