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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-dev] Docbook-sgml-utils needs lynx?
From:       Mike Gardiner <obz () gentoo ! org>
Date:       2003-11-26 12:25:57
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On Wed, 2003-11-26 at 01:51, Patrick Börjesson wrote:
> When doing an update world I saw that something wanted to drag in lynx
> to my system, so I did an 'etcat -d lynx' to see what could have caused
> portage to think that I needed lynx. The result showed me some packages,
> but the only one I had installed was docbook-sgml-utils, so I took a
> look at the ebuild for it. In the last row of DEPEND I saw "|| (
> net-www/lynx net-www/links )" which I take means that either lynx OR
> links have to be installed... This is strange in itself as docbook
> shouldn't need a browser to be installed, or? Anyway... I already have
> links installed so why does docbook-utils want me to install lynx?
> 
> Patrick Börjesson

Hi Patrick (apologies for the off-list reply),

Currently, docbook-sgml-utils requires either lynx, or links to output
in text format. If you'd like to check this, have a look at the 'txt'
backend (in /usr/share/sgml/docbook/utils-0.6.12/backends), near the top
you'll see the CONVERT logic. You can also try removing (emerge -C) lynx
and links and then converting a docbook sgml file with docbook2txt, and
see it error out.

I did think about this long and hard, whether it was too 'heavy' and
dependency, and had a look (in the days when time permitted) at
modifying the txt backend to use html2text. According to the TODO in the
source archive, this is a planned addition to docbook-sgml-utils, at
which time neither console browser will be required for the txt backend
(although, of course, could still be used).

I consider conversion to plain text a fairly standard function, which is
broken unless a 'real' backend is provided by lynx or links. 

So I guess in answer to your question 'docbook shouldnt need a browser
to be installed?', it actually does need a console browser backend at
the moment, although hopefully an html2text backend will be available in
the future.

Hope that clears things up,
Mike.


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