Customizing DocBook

DocBook is a general purpose XML vocabulary particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications). DocBook has been under active maintenance for more than 20 years; it began life as an SGML document type definition. Because it is a large and robust schema, and because its main structures correspond to the general notion of what constitutes a “book,” DocBook has been adopted by a large and growing community of authors writing books of all kinds. After a brief introduction to DocBook, we will discuss the mechanisms built in to DocBook for customization.

DocBook

DocBook is a general purpose XML schema particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications). DocBook has been under active maintenance for more than 20 years,; it began life as an SGML document type definition. Because it is a large and robust schema, and because its main structures correspond to the general notion of what constitutes a “book,” DocBook has been adopted by a large and growing community of authors writing books of all kinds. DocBook is supported “out of the box” by a number of commercial tools, and there is rapidly expanding support for it in a number of free software environments. These features have combined to make DocBook a generally easy to understand, widely useful, and very popular schema. Dozens of organizations are using DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide.

Discourse Analysis and Document Analysis: SGML, Scholarly Publishing and Structuralist Theory

This paper studies the SGML Document-Type Definition for journal articles, created by Elsevier Science Publishers. Using the structuralist theory of Roland Barthes to analyze the various levels on which discourse is produced, the paper concludes that DTDs define many features of discursive structure by determining the hierarchy and grammar of elements and element sequences. . .

XML Documents Normalization Using GN-DTD

Designing a well-structured XML document is important for the sake of readability, maintainability and more importantly to avoid both data redundancies and update anomalies. This paper proposes to improve and simplify XML structural design using a normalization process. To achieve this, Graphical Notation for Document Type Definition (GN-DTD) is used to describe the structure of XML document at the schema level. Multiple levels of normal forms for GN-DTD are proposed and the corresponding normalization rules to transform from poorly designed into well-designed XML documents. A case study is presented to show the application of these normal forms and normalization algorithm.

Thinking Outside Conventional Aerospace and Defense Technical Publications Using Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)

In Aerospace and Defense, documentation is of a very large size, highly structured and needs constant updating. Managing this documentation has been a constant challenge to this industry. Moreover accuracy of data is a critical aspect of constant worry to publication managers. At present, documentation is being created using traditional publishing software resulting in wastage of time and effort. Time is spent in formatting documents instead of creation of content. Each time a document is created or updated formatting has to be applied manually. Preparing documents for print or web requires complete reformatting. Content is not structured across similar types of publications resulting in no consistency. Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML) allows a document to be broken up into modules allowing reusability. SGML enforces content to be developed in a structured manner maintaining consistency across publications. This structured approach is achieved using a Document Type Definition (DTD). Separation of content from formatting is achieved using Format Output Specification Instance (FOSI).

Design and Implementation of a MEMS Design Process Description Language- MDPDL

For the complexity and miniaturization of MEMS, MEMS design process is extremely different from general mechanical design process. Commonly the design flow is dominated by “trial-and-error” methods. It is necessary to describe design process of MEMS for reuse. This will help to reduce the number of redesigns and thus decrease the time to market. Based on XML and necessary extensions being made, a MEMS design process description language, called MDPDL, is presented and the syntax and implementation are discussed in detail. The Document Type Definition (DTD) is adopted to define the syntax rules for the tags of MDPDL, considering core activities and related resources of MEMS design process. Finally, an implementation case has been given out to illustrate the efficiency of MDPDL.