[boost] Improving Boostbook's Output

Subject: [boost] Improving Boostbook's Output
From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-12-04 10:47:07

Currently the Boostbook XSL stylesheets generate a lot of verbose output 
when run: to put this in perspective a complete build of the docs under 
boost-root/doc/ generates 3.1 Mb of messages, quite a large proportion of 
which are from Boostbook.  Consequently at present it's impossible to figure 
out what represents a real issue, and what's just "chaff".

So I'm proposing changing the Boostbook stylesheets as follows:

* Add a new xsl:param "boostbook.verbose" which defaults to 0.
* For each occurrence of xsl:message in the style sheets, we will either:
    * Terminate with an error if the message looks like it's a possible 
genuine error.
    * Otherwise emit a warning *only* if boostbook.verbose=1

I'm prepared to invest some time to make this work, but any comments or 
possible issues anyone foresees from this change?

Cheers, John.