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From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-11-20 20:51:36


Ilya Sokolov wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
>> Ilya Sokolov wrote:
>>> Edward Diener wrote:
>>>> Rene Rivera wrote:
>>>>> Edward Diener wrote:
>>>>>> ...updating 1 target...
>>>>>> xslt-xsltproc-dir html\function-doc_HTML.manifest
>>>>>>
>>>>>> set XML_CATALOG_FILES=..\..\..\bin.v2/boostbook_catalog.xml
>>>>>> "xsltproc" --stringparam manifest "function-doc_HTML.manifest"
>>>>>> --xinclude -o "h
>>>>>> tml/" "E:\Programming\Version
>>>>>> Control\Subversion\Boost\tools\boostbook\xsl\html.
>>>>>> xsl" "..\..\..\bin.v2\libs\function\doc\msvc-8.0\debug\function.docbook"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ...failed xslt-xsltproc-dir html\function-doc_HTML.manifest...
>>>>>> ...failed updating 1 target..."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What does the failure mean ?
>>>>> That's weird. Usually programs tell you why things fail. Try running the
>>>>> same commands in a shell to see if you get the same problem. Or if it
>>>>> gives some useful errors.
>>>> Running:
>>>>
>>>> "xsltproc" --stringparam manifest "function-doc_HTML.manifest"
>>>> --xinclude -o "html/" "E:\Programming\Version
>>>> Control\Subversion\Boost\tools\boostbook\xsl\html.xsl"
>>>> "..\..\..\bin.v2\libs\function\doc\msvc-8.0\debug\function.docbook"
>>>>
>>>> from the command line succeeds.
>>> are you sure? how did you determine that? (i think i've seen exactly
>>> this problem already)
>> By succeed I mean that it returns no errors to stderr or stdout and
>> returns no error code of 1 or above.
>
> Has it produced something?

There is no other output to stderr or stdout. It does look as if the
xsltproc command is trying to write output to "html/" but my
understanding is that the -o option is supposed to be a file but the
option in the command line above points to a directory. Is that what is
perhaps causing the problem ? Of course somewhere in the bowels of Boost
Build the xsltproc command line is being generated so I have no idea why
the -o option points to a directory rather than a file. There is nothing
being output in the "html/" relative directory on my machine after
xsltproc is run.

What is most annoying about Boost Build is that one gets back no idea
why something is said to have failed. I find this a real weakness of
Boost Build from the end user's perspective.

> BTW, error code may be less than zero on windows

That may be possible but I have no idea how to check if the errorlevel
is less than zero in a cmd batch file.

>
>>>> I have no idea why bjam would say it
>>>> fails. What the command is supposed to do I do not know.
>>> 1. try "bjam onehtml"
>> What is that supposed to do ?
>
> From
> http://boost.org/doc/html/boostbook/getting/started.html#boostbook.setup.running:
>
> <quote>
> html HTML output (multiple files). This is the default
> onehtml HTML output in a single HTML file.
> </quote>
>
> With metacomm' xsltproc installed, 'bjam html' (or just 'bjam') silently
> fails for me, but 'bjam onehtml' works. Binaries from
> http://www.zlatkovic.com/libxml.en.html work in both cases.

That "onehtml" worked ! Thanks ! However this points out the fact that
something is still broken since without "onehtml" it gives the same
error as before.

>
>>> 2. try another xsltproc (e.g. http://www.zlatkovic.com/libxml.en.html)
>> I will give it a try, but this business of trying to setup and use the
>> Boost documentation system, according to instructions, and failing to be
>> able to do so, is getting old. I think Boost should either consider
>> something better than this mess or get it working someday in this century.
>>
>> I did get the xsltproc directly from the link in the The BoostBook
>> Documentation Format, and that link is at
>> http://www.meta-comm.com/engineering/boost/xsltproc-win32.zip. Is that
>> link's implementation of xsltproc broken perhaps ?
>
> AFAICT, its purpose is to contain this old fix:
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/xslt/2004-November/msg00030.html

'its' meaning the metacomm link ?

>
> BoostBook docs should be updated to point to binary packages made by
> Igor Zlatkovic, IMHO.

I will try those binaries instead, but if they are better than the
metacomm link, then that metacomm link should have been updated or the
metacomm distribution should have been updated to include fixes in the
other implementation.

It is a real pain when someone like me tries to use the xsltproc in the
documentation, it does not work, and everyone thinks that is par for the
course and not important enough to be fixed, even for the next person
who will run into exactly the same problem. It is understandable only in
that the Boost developers are justifiably far more concerned about
whether their code works rather than whether one can build documentation
from their instructions. The only reason I, as an end user, wanted to
build the code rather than wait for the next release, is because their
were some interesting libraries in the latest Subversion head, whose
documentation I wanted to read, but that documentation must be built.


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