xmlto now apparently uses xmltex/pdfxmltex, not PassiveTex

[ken@…]

Looking at the valgrind issue, I found a note in Arch that xmlto needs pdfxmltex for its docs, and asking if anybody was willing to package that. We have it using dblatex (a straightforward build), PassiveTex, and fop (which is in the book but brings in a load of dependencies).

Running configure, now that I have texlive installed (I normally build xmlto very early on a desktop : chicken meet egg) I can see that it checks for dblatex, xmltex, pdfxmltex (I have both of those, pdfxmltex got into the Makefile) and fop. Looks as if it still needs the other two.

I might build these in my current throwaway build, after I have looked at valgrind, or I might not. So for the moment, this is just a claim that our deps are incorrect. Whether it can actually build the docs if all the deps are presnet remains to be seen.

[ken@…]

Looking at xmlto, the default back-end is apparently called passivetex, and the deps appear to be xmltex or pdfxmltex. The xmlto manpage says that a PDF can be created using:

xmlto pdf filename.xml

but if I try that on xmlto's included doc/xmlto.xml it blows up at:

(/opt/texlive/2014/texmf-dist/tex/context/base/supp-pdf.mkii
[Loading MPS to PDF converter (version 2006.09.02).]
) (/opt/texlive/2014/texmf-dist/tex/latex/oberdiek/epstopdf-base.sty
(/opt/texlive/2014/texmf-dist/tex/latex/oberdiek/grfext.sty)
! Undefined control sequence.
<recently read> \AppendGraphicsExtensions 
                                          
l.451 \fi
         
? 
! Emergency stop.
<recently read> \AppendGraphicsExtensions 
                                          
l.451 \fi
         
!  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
Transcript written on tmp.log.

From that, NO logs of any sort were created. The .mkii suffix indicates that it is using the old version of context (current is mkiv).

I note that it sets up this "DEFAULT" backend even if the deps are missing.

The Arch posting was wrong - pdfxmltex, or at least the current version, will not create docs from xmlto and the Makefile does not appear to provide a target for them.

I will mark this as 'invalid'.

[ken@…]

I forgot to add that the xmlto pdf can be created with

xmlto --with-dblatex pdf xmlto.xml

That handles all the text correctly, but puts it on 6 pages. The alternative

xmlto --with-fop pdf xmlto.xml

Only uses 4 pages and generally looks nicer, but makes a pig's ear of the r-caron in the second Author's name (although both variants correctly handle s-caron and i-acute in his surname). I'll add a note to the wiki for that.