XML2RFC(1)

✨ NAME ✨

xml2rfc — bestie, this is the tool that formats RFCs using XML markup 💅 (also it lives in section 1 of the User Commands manual, iykyk)

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so here's the whole vibe. The usage goes like this:

usage: xml2rfc [OPTIONS] SOURCE [OPTIONS]...

and for real, here's an example straight up:

xml2rfc draft.xml -b draft-foo-19 --text --html

🌸 Positional arguments:

• source — the Input XML file you want rendered into one or more of the available formats. no source, no slay.

📖 Documentation options:

Some options to generate built-in documentation. (yes, the docs document the docs, main character energy)

• -h, --help — show a help message and exit 🫶
• --docfile — generate a documentation XML file ready for formatting
• --manpage — show paged text documentation
• --country-help — show the recognized <country> strings 🌍
• --pdf-help — show pdf generation requirements
• --template-dir TEMPLATE_DIR — directory to pull the doc.xml and doc.yaml templates from. The default is the "templates" directory of the xml2rfc package
• --values — show option values and from where they come
• -V, --version — display the version number and exit
• --warn-bare-unicode — Warn use of bare Unicode in tags where bare use of Unicode should be closely inspected 👀

🦋 Format selection:

One or more of the following output formats may be specified. The default is --text. The destination filename will be based on the input filename, unless --out=FILE or --basename=BASE is used.

• --text — outputs formatted text to file, with proper page breaks
• --html — outputs formatted HTML to file
• --nroff — outputs formatted nroff to file (only v2 input)
• --pdf — (unavailable due to missing external library) 😭 the pdf dream is on hold
• --raw — outputs formatted text to file, unpaginated (only v2 input)
• --expand — outputs XML to file with all references expanded
• --use-bib — update all datatracker references with bib.ietf.org
• --v2v3 — convert vocabulary version 2 XML to version 3
• --preptool — run preptool on the input
• --unprep — reduce prepped xml to unprepped
• --info — generate a JSON file with anchor to section lookup information

⚡ Generic Switch Options:

• -C, --clear-cache — purge the cache and exit 🧹
• --debug — Show debugging output
• -n, --no-dtd — disable DTD validation step
• -N, --no-network — don't use the network to resolve references
• -O, --no-org-info — don't show author organization info on page one (legacy only)
• -q, --quiet — don't print anything while working 🤫
• --skip-config-files — ignore config file settings
• --allow-local-file-access — Allow local file system references
• -r, --remove-pis — Remove XML processing instructions
• -u, --utf8 — generate utf8 output
• -v, --verbose — print extra information

💖 Generic Options with Values:

• -b, --basename NAME — specify the base name for output files
• -c, --cache PATH — specify a primary cache directory to write to; default: try [ /var/cache/xml2rfc, ~/.cache/xml2rfc ]
• --config-file FILE — specify a configuration file
• -d, --dtd DTDFILE — specify an alternate dtd file
• -D, --date DATE — run as if the date is DATE (format: yyyy-mm-dd). Default: Today's date 📅
• -f, --filename FILE — Deprecated. The same as -o 💀 (it's giving legacy, use -o bestie)
• -i, --indent INDENT — With some v3 formatters: Indentation to use when pretty-printing XML
• -o, --out FILE — specify an explicit output filename
• -p, --path PATH — specify the directory path for output files
• -s, --silence STRING — Silence any warning beginning with the given string

🌈 Generic Format Options:

• --v3 — with --text and --html: use the v3 formatter, rather than the legacy one
• --legacy, --v2 — with --text and --html: use the legacy output formatters, rather than the v3 ones
• --id-is-work-in-progress — in references, refer to Internet-Drafts as "Work in Progress"

🍓 Text Format Options:

• --no-headers — calculate page breaks, and emit form feeds and page top spacing, but omit headers and footers from the paginated format
• --legacy-list-symbols — use the legacy list bullet symbols, rather than the new ones
• --legacy-date-format — use the legacy date format, rather than the new one
• --no-legacy-date-format — don't use the legacy date format
• --list-symbols 4*CHAR — use the characters given as list bullet symbols
• --bom, --BOM — Add a BOM (unicode byte order mark) to the start of text files
• --paginate, --pagination — do pagination
• -P, --no-pagination — don't do pagination of v3 draft text format
• --table-hyphen-breaks — More easily do line breaks after hyphens in table cells to give a more compact table
• --table-borders {full,light,minimal,min} — The style of table borders to use for text output; one of full/light/minimal
• --rfc-html-archive-url RFC_HTML_ARCHIVE_URL — URL for HTML file archive of RFCs
• --id-html-archive-url ID_HTML_ARCHIVE_URL — URL for HTML file archive Internet-Drafts

✨ Html Format Options:

• --css FILE — Use the given CSS file instead of the builtin
• --external-css — place css in external files
• --no-external-css — don't place css in external files
• --external-js — place js in external files
• --no-external-js — don't place js in external files
• --rfc-base-url RFC_BASE_URL — Base URL for RFC links
• --id-base-url ID_BASE_URL — Base URL for Internet-Draft links
• --rfc-reference-base-url RFC_REFERENCE_BASE_URL — Base URL for RFC reference targets, replacing the target="..." value given in the reference entry
• --id-reference-base-url ID_REFERENCE_BASE_URL — Base URL for I-D reference targets
• --metadata-js-url METADATA_JS_URL — URL for the metadata script
• --no-rfc-local — Do not link to rfc-local.css

🧚 V2-V3 Converter Options:

• --add-xinclude — replace reference elements with RFC and Internet-Draft seriesInfo with the appropriate XInclude element
• --draft-revisions, --draft-revs — Reference explicit draft revisions when inserting XIncludes for draft references
• --strict — be strict about stripping some deprecated attributes

👑 Preptool Options:

• --accept-prepped — accept already prepped input

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💜 okay that's literally the whole page bestie, every flag accounted for, no notes, ate and left no crumbs

This lil manual page is xml2rfc 3.30.2, dated September 2025 — and that's the official source/version + date sign-off, periodt 💅✨