SGMLSPL(1)

📦 version 1.03ii, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 SGMLSPL 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the sgmlspl manual page — it lives in section 1 of the manual (that's the "user commands" girlies, iykyk), and it's here to turn your SGML docs into literally anything else. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

sgmlspl — a simple post-processor for onsgmls/nsgmls. yes that's the whole vibe. simple. humble. iconic. 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

sgmlspl spec file

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so sgmlspl is a sample application that converts SGML documents into other formats, and the way it does that is by you handing it a specification file that says exactly how to handle each of these:

  • every element
  • every external data entity
  • every subdocument entity
  • every CDATA string
  • every record end
  • every SDATA string
  • every processing instruction

like, no crumbs left. every single one gets a rule. 👑

🦋 how to actually use it

to use sgmlspl, you prepare a specification file that contains regular perl5 code. yes bestie, it's just perl. that's the whole trick. 🧚

so say your SGML document is named doc.sgml, your sgmlspl specification file is named spec.pl, and the new file you want is named doc.latex. then you run this in a Unix shell to convert the SGML document:

onsgmls doc.sgml | sgmlspl spec.pl > doc.latex

look at that pipe. look at that redirect. it's giving plumbing. it's giving art. 🌈

and here's the cute part: sgmlspl will pass any additional arguments on to the specification file, which can then process them in the regular perl5 fashion. so whatever extra stuff you throw at it, your spec file gets to deal with it. 💖

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

  • /usr/share/doc/sgmls-doc/sgmlspl/sgmlspl.html — the sgmlspl documentation in HTML format 📄
  • /usr/share/doc/sgmls-doc/SGMLSpm/sgmls.html — the SGMLS documentation in HTML format 📄
  • onsgmls(1) — the other half of the pipeline, the one doing the feeding 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Ardo van Rangelrooij <ardo@debian.org> — absolute main character, wrote the whole thing, we stan. 💜

okay that's the page!! this was the SGMLSPL manual, dated October 26, 1999 — yes she's a vintage queen and she still slays — and you've reached the very end, so go convert something gorgeous. bye bestie!! 🎀✨💅

📦 where this page comes from