.\" This manpage has been automatically generated by docbook2man 
.\" from a DocBook document.  This tool can be found at:
.\" <http://shell.ipoline.com/~elmert/comp/docbook2X/> 
.\" Please send any bug reports, improvements, comments, patches, 
.\" etc. to Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>.
.TH "DOCBOOK2MAN-SPEC.PL" "1" "27 June 2002" "" ""
.SH NAME
docbook2man-spec.pl \- convert DocBook RefEntries to man pages
.SH SYNOPSIS

\fBsgmlspl\fR \fBdocbook2man-spec.pl\fR


\fBnsgmls\fR [ \fB\fIsgml document\fB\fR ]\fB| sgmlspl\fR \fBdocbook2man-spec.pl\fR

.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
\fBdocbook2man\fR is a sgmlspl spec file that produced man
pages (using the -man macros) from DocBook RefEntry markup.
.PP
The program reads ESIS produced by nsgmls (or other SGML parsers) from
standard input.  Markup not found in RefEntry is discarded.
.PP
Its output, the converted man pages, are written to the current directory.  If
RefMeta information is not specified in a
RefEntry, then the man page will be written to standard
output.
.PP
The file \fImanpage.links\fR will also be created, which contains
any aliases of the manpages generated.  This file is in the format:

.nf
\fI<man page>\fR \fI<alias
manpage>\fR
.fi
.PP
The \fImanpage.refs\fR file keeps track of
XRef references.  Note that if the input document has any
forward references, then \fBdocbook2man\fR may have to be
invoked twice (the first time updating \fImanpage.refs\fR) to
resolve them.
.SH "REQUIREMENTS"

The SGMLSpm package from CPAN.  This package includes the sgmlspl script
that is also needed.
.SH "LIMITATIONS"
.PP
Trying \fBdocbook2man\fR on non-DocBook or non-conformant
SGML results in undefined behavior. :-)
.PP
This program is a slow, dodgy Perl script.
.PP
This program does not come close to supporting all the possible markup
in DocBook, and may produce wrong output in some cases with supported
markup.
.SH "TO DO"
.PP
Obvious stuff:
.TP 0.2i
\(bu
Fix \fBdocbook2man\fR breakages found in
the test documents, especially
\fIweird.sgml\fR.
.TP 0.2i
\(bu
Add new element handling and fix existing handling.  
Be robust.  
.TP 0.2i
\(bu
Produce cleanest, readable man output as possible (unlike some
other converters).  Follow Linux
\fBman\fR(7)
convention.  As conversion to man pages is usually not done very often, it is
better to be slower/more complicated than to produce wrong output.  Also if
someone wants to give up using DocBook for whatever reason, the last-converted
man pages can then be maintained manually.  
.TP 0.2i
\(bu
Make it faster. I think most of the speed problems so far is with parsing
ESIS.  Rewrite \fISGMLS.pm\fR with C and/or get input directly
from \fBSP\fR.
.TP 0.2i
\(bu
Support other (human) languages.  But what to do with non-ASCII charsets?
SGMLSpm doesn't report them and \fBroff\fR does not grok them.
[Comment: text after enclosed lists (and SS blocks) will break docbook2man]
If we do this, more people can use DocBook.
.SH "COPYRIGHT"
.PP
Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Steve Cheng <steve@ggi-project.org>
.PP
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
later version.
.PP
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; see the file \fICOPYING\fR.  If not, please write
to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.