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Show HN: A Python script to convert DocBook books to QtHelp
I usually write my user documentation using DocBook. For my recent applications built on top of Qt (e.g. PaletteWB (www.palettewb.com)), I needed something that generates in-app help pages. db2qthelp does this.
Any criticism or interest is appreciated.
- moistly 4y agoI suggest using XSLT to transform Docbook to other XML. It’s purpose-built for that task. Saxonica offers a Python plug-in, though truth is that the XSLT solution can do everything you need.
- dkrajzew 4y agoYes, I know. But DocBook generates fine HTML and HTML is what QtHelp shows.
- moistly 4y agoAnd you should then use XSLT to transform the docbook-generated html to Qt html. It is designed for that task, no weird Python regexes and string-splitting and indentation-tracking required. IOW, choosing the right tool for the job.
- dkrajzew 4y ago:-) You insist... Yeah, look, it's hacky, yes, and maybe runs only with a certain setting. But, well, you may be right, when I think a second time about this. Thanks...
- moistly 4y agoI should note that XPath is really the key here: it’s an elegant language to get and transform tree-structured and sequential data, so it could be well-used in a Pythonic template pipeline. XSLT is a functional programming language that leans heavily on XPath to support transformation of tree-based structures. XQuery is another in the same vein. But you can accomplish the same things using an imperative language like Python, calling into XPath for data.