Re: [docbook] How to display a directory tree

[nico <nicolas dot marsgui at libertysurf dot fr>]

Thank you very much for this quite detailed reply.

I agree that variablelist is strangely named. For instance I usually use  
it in <refentry> sections to explain the use of the options supported by a  
command line utility.

Thanks again,

BG

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 11:45:58 -0700, John L. Clark <jlc6@po.cwru.edu> wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 02:06:33PM -0400, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> > > I wonder if there is a set of tags to represent a directory tree, with
> > > the  files included. The main purpose is for system administrators who
> > > want to  explain where some file are, and to give an explanation for
> > > each file.
>
> > I have used 'tree' in combination with <screen> to do that.
>
> What is this 'tree' you speak of?
>
> As for myself, I've used nested variablelists to achieve this sort of
> semantics.  I treat each varlistentry as a directory entry, the (first)
> term in a varlistentry as the name of the entry, and the listitem as a
> description and an optional further directory expansion (using the same
> variablelist structure).  For example:
>
>   <variablelist>
>     <varlistentry>
>       <term>usr</term>
>
>       <listitem>
>         <para>Common directory for shared user resources on UNIX
>         systems.</para>
>
>         <variablelist>
>           <varlistentry>
>             <term>bin</term>
>
>             <listitem>
>               <!-- etc... -->
>             </listitem>
>           </varlistentry>
>         </variablelist>
>       </listitem>
>     </varlistentry>
>   </variablelist>
>
> I haven't messed with the formatting, but I can imagine how one could
> format this in a number of ways to look like a directory list.  Upon
> reflection, it seems reasonable to me to specify the role attribute for
> such variablelists (role="directoryList") or somesuch.
>
> Alternatively, this may be a lot cleaner with a standard itemizedlist or
> simplelist when used with the new term definition structure in
> DocBook-NG[0] [1].
>
> Tangentially, this brings up a slight nit that I have with DocBook.  I
> think that the variablelist element is misnamed.  I think the idea of
> the "definition list" that is present in HTML is a closer fit to the
> common uses of this type of list.  In a hypothetical definition list,
> one could still "define" variables (and so we can still represent
> variable lists), but we can also "define" anything that requires
> defining (such as the structure of a directory in this case).  But of
> course, such a change would be Significantly Backwards Incompatible(tm).
>
> Take care,
>
>     John L. Clark
>
> [0] http://norman.walsh.name/2005/04/08/jagermeister#p13
>
> [1] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200502/msg00042.html

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