MakeIndex reimplementation via XSLT 2.0

Contents

1. Introduction

The aim of this project is to try to reimplement MakeIndex via XSLT 2.0. The author just wishes to demonstrate the possibility of such a usage of XSLT, not to make a production software. The future of this project depends on the response of potential users as well as upon author's personal need. The program is licensed under GPL.

The stylesheets require XSLT 2.0 processor, e.g. Saxon v.8.x.

The stylesheets are modular and work in the following steps:

• Parsing the input into an XML structure (parse-index.xsl)
• Alphabetical sorting (sort-index.xsl)

Output of these steps can be written to an auxiliary file for testing purposes. The structure of these files is described in the documented Relax NG Schema.

The last step is output formatting. Format useful for subsequent processing by LaT_EX is demonstrated here (format-index.xsl).

The project was described in detail in the Bulletin of the Czechoslovak T_EX Users' Group No. 1/2006 (in Czech).

2. Files description

2.1. musixdoc.idx

Modified file from MusixT_EX documentation, bugs will be reported during processing. For testing only, encofing ISO 8859-1.

Note: The bugs were introduced intentionally for testing purposes.

2.2. prstyn.idx

Another test file, encoding ISO 8859-2.

2.3. makeindex.rng/.xsd

Definition of the structure of auxiliary files in Relax NG. Conversion to an XML Schema was done by trang. The Relax NG Schema was also transformed into HTML. Transformation was achieved by "Tool for annotation of Relax NG Schemas".

2.4. parse-index.xsl

Stylesheet for parsing a file created by LaT_EX. Parameter index contains a comma separated list of input files, optional parameter enc specifies their encoding (default is UTF-8). Other parameters reflect properties of the same names defined in the MakeIndex style file. Some of them are used in regular expressions, therefore special characters must be escaped by a backslash.

The stylesheet is intended to be imported to another stylesheet but it can be used as such for testing. The name of the initial template is parsed-index. The output must be valid with respect to makeindex.rng/.xsd.

If the input files file1.idx and file2.idx have ISO 8859-2 encoding, the output file file.xml should have CP852 encoding and saxon8 is the script for invoking the Saxon processor, we make use of command:

saxon8 -o file.xml -it parsed-index parse-index.xsl index=file1.idx,file2.idx enc=iso-8859-2 !encoding=cp852

2.5. testsort.xsl

Auxiliary test stylesheet, see sort-index.xsl.

2.6. sort-index.xsl

This stylesheet performs alphabetical sorting accorting to criteria given in parameters. Only elements the name of which is supplied in the keyword parameter are sorted. The initial template for testing purposes is sorted-index and the output must be valid with respect to makeindex.rng/.xsd. The stylesheet cannot be used as such but must be imported together with another stylesheet generating the same output as parse-index.xsl. If testsort.xsl is used with similar requirements as above, we use:

saxon8 -o file.xml -it sorted-index testsort.xsl index=file1.idx,file2.idx enc=iso-8859-2 !encoding=cp852

2.7. format-index.xsl

This stylesheet formats alphabetically sorted output for further processng by LaT_EX. The properties defined by MakeIndex style file are here specified via parameters. The stylesheet has two initial templates: noheaders which does not create headers, and headers which does create them. Some letters do not have primary sort order, therefor thay must not appear in the header. The equivalence for the Czech and Slovak languages s defined in function zw:key. Similar functions for other languages must be created by yourselves.

2.8. makeindex.xsl

This auxiliary file just imports stylesheets parse-index.xsl, sort-index.xsl, and format-index.xsl.

3. References

The project was inspired by lecture Michael Kay: Schema-aware XSLT Processing presented on conference XML Prague in June 2005.

Other references:

1. XSLT 2.0
2. XPath 2.0
3. Trang: Multi-format schema converter based on RELAX NG

4. Download

xslt-indexing.zip, 39 KiB