[docbook-apps] Dealing with xml:base when processing ulinks to html

[Jeffrey Yasskin <jyasskin at gmail dot com>]

I'm using XInclude to assemble a website, and some of the source files
are in a different directory than the driver. XInclude kindly adds
xml:base attributes to keep the relative links working, but the
docbook stylesheets ignore them when converting <ulink>s to <a>s,
which breaks the links.

I was wondering if anyone else has run into this problem and if you
know of any existing customizations to the XSL stylesheets that deal
with xml:base.

If I don't get any answers in the next couple days, I'll try to write
my own set of templates to handle this and then post them or a link to
them to this list.


Some commentary on alternate possible solutions:

I can copy the xml:base attributes into the output tree, but that only
works with xhtml-aware browsers.

The XPath2 fn:resolve-uri($relative) function resolves the uri all the
way to an absolute uri. If I'm processing on my local machine, I'll
get a file:// url, which won't work once I upload it to the web
server. I only want to process rule #1 from
[http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/#rfc2396].

Website's layout.xml or the target database mentioned in DocBook XSL:
The Complete Guide look like they could work by replacing the <ulink>s
with <olink>s. They might turn out to be the right solution if dealing
with xml:base is too hard, but I'd like to try the simple solution
first.

Thanks for any help,
Jeffrey