RE: [docbook-apps] Mathematics and DocBook

[Peter Ring <pri at magnus dot dk>]

Option #3 works for me; but then math isn't the primary content in the
documents that I see.

The idea of some sort of macro that expands into the proper markup is
intriguing. I presume that you want to write and read raw DocBook XML the
way that you'd work with LaTeX. IMHO, there are two fundamental issues
involved here:

- While usually suitable for human consumption, 
  DocBook really is an exchange format. It's widely 
  used as an authoring and storage format, but it was 
  designed as an exchange format.

- Simple replacement of text is easy enough with entities.
  But it won't work as macros. General entities must 
  be well formed, i.e., you can't just break the
  <inlineequation> gibberish into three parts. You could 
  have a couple of entity references within an entity
  declaration as placeholders, but you'll only get one
  shot at redeclaration -- not much good.

A quick hack could involve some m4 macro trickery, picking up parameters
from a processing instruction. 

Or maybe a sprinkle of XSLT or DSSSL, depending on your tool chain. That
could prove quite useful as a general mechanism, not just for writing math.

kind regards
Peter Ring



-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin S. Van Horn [mailto:kvanhorn@ksvanhorn.com]
Sent: 4. august 2003 20:01
To: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [docbook-apps] Mathematics and DocBook


I'm getting ready to write documentation for some mathematical software, 
and so I've been looking into how to put mathematics into DocBook 
documents.  (I'm new to DocBook.) What I've found so far has been very 
disheartening, as the options are either inadequate to produce nicely 
typeset mathematics, or are excruciatingly painful to use.  These 
options are given in Bob Stayton's book, _DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide_:

<snip />

3. DBTeXMath.  You can produce nicely typeset math this way, but you 
still have the problem of excruciatingly verbose input for the simplest 
thing.  For example, just to reference a mathematical variable N I have 
to write
  <inlineequation>
    <inlinemediaobject>
      <imageobject role="html">
        <imagedata fileref="texmath1.png" format="PNG"/>
      </imageobject>
      <textobject role="tex"><phrase>$N$</phrase></textobject>
    </inlinemediaobject>
  </inlineequation>

<snip />

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