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Re: docbook changelog

by Bob Stayton :: Rate this Message:

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Hi Zoltan,

In general, the schemas in DocBook 4 are backwards compatible with earlier versions. Changes in new versions include adding attributes and elements, but not removing them or renaming them. The DocBook Technical Committee was very careful to make sure that each new schema release in the 4.x series would work with a previous installed base of DocBook documents. That means if your document is valid in 4.1.2, then it should also be valid in 4.4. I would suggest you try just changing the reference to the schema version and revalidating. I would be surprised if it did not validate.

The break in backwards compatibility came in going from 4.5 to 5.0. That was advertised as such, and requires an upgrade of XML documents. An XSL stylesheet is already available to assist with that process.

Regarding change logs, for version 4.x, the normative schema for DocBook XML was DTDs. The officially released DTDs are available from docbook.org, and each release contained a ChangeLog file. These ChangeLog files are the sequential records of checkin comments from the revision control system, so they are not an easy summary of "what's changed" in each each version. See for example:

http://www.docbook.org/xml/4.4/ChangeLog

But I don't think you will need to construct an upgrade script from the change logs because of backwards compatibility.

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@...

----- Original Message -----

From: jazoja4@...

To: docbook@...

Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 12:45 AM

Subject: [docbook] docbook changelog

Hi all!

This is my first email here.
I am looking for a DocBook changelog.
Especially I'd like to know what changed form v4.1.2 to 4.4.

Besides, is there a simple way, to convert v4.1.2 documents to v4.4?

My original problem:
I have to transform DOC/DOCX documents to DocBook v4.4.
DocBook roundtripping ended up in error.
LibreOffice resulted DocBook v4.1.2.
Now I am planning to compare XSD files and write a custom XSLT to do the job.

Thanx for help in advance!

Jazoja

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