Generation of the man page should be done in two phases

[eric-brechemier]

Currently, the XSLT stylesheet tidy1.xsl.in mixes two responsibilities: transforming the XML options structures to the man page structure (grammatical level) and formatting of text using troff commands (lexical level).

The transformation should be done in two phases:

1. convert options XML to 'man XML' (custom XML tags that represent the structure of a man page)
2. convert 'man XML' to man text format

For example:

Before

<xsl:template name="seealso">
  <xsl:if test="seealso">
    <xsl:text>
</xsl:text>
See also: <xsl:text />
    <xsl:for-each select="seealso">
      <xsl:text />\fB--<xsl:value-of select="." />\fR<xsl:text />
      <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
        <xsl:text>, </xsl:text>
      </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

After

Phase 1

<xsl:template name="seealso">
  <xsl:if test="seealso">
    <br />
    <span>See also: </span>
    <xsl:for-each select="seealso">
      <bold><xsl:value-of select="." /></bold>
      <xsl:if test="position() != last()">
        <span>, </span>
      </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

Phase 2

<xsl:template match="br">
  <xsl:text>&#xA;</xsl:text>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="span">
  <xsl:value-of select="." />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="bold">
  <bold><xsl:value-of select="." /></bold>
</xsl:template>

[balthisar]

A PR would be welcome!

[eric-brechemier]

@balthisar that's the plan ;)

[balthisar]

Since we're awaiting a PR, and there's no actual bug or support request here, I'll clear this from the stack.