How many passes a conventional compiler does? I don't know, but in my system I have, let's see: 1) read sources, 2) select the subset I want to publish, 3-4) r

How many passes a conventional compiler does? I don't know, but in my system I have, let's see: 1) read sources, 2) select the subset I want to publish, 3-4) resolve references (two steps), 5-6) assign XHTML IDs to references (two steps), 7) transform to XHTML, 8) update files. I don't see how I can make it smaller, that is, maybe I can cram everything into a single pass, but this will be much more complex than small steps in the pipeline. And this is the minimum; it's pretty easy to add more passes for various extras.