having trouble making changes to the handbook

[Ernie Luzar]

Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
> On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 09:17:47AM -0400, Ernie Luzar wrote:
>> I am following the info in this link
>> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/
>>
>> I installed the textproc/docproj package.
>>
>> The above link says that svn is installed as part of that port. But it 
>> really is not. Have to use the built in svnlite command.
> 
> It seems that
> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/textproc/docproj/Makefile?revision=420130&view=markup
> has some logic to not depend on devel/subversion when
> /usr/bin/svnlite is present in the build environment, which is
> arguably not the best choice, since the build environment need not
> match the install environment when pre-built packages are in use.
> 
> 

The above reply makes no sense to me. svnlite is included in the base OS
release. So it's there in the build & install environment by default.
Are you trying to say the textproc/docproj port is in error and should
be fixed to install subversion as a dependent?

I used the OS default svnlite to checkout the whole doc tree and
manually updated the desired chapter source through creating the diff
file without any problems.

Please expand and clarify your point.


>> The shown command
>>    "svnlite checkout https://svn.FreeBSD.org/doc/head ~/doc"
>> downloads far more items than wanted. This needs better example of just 
>> downloading the desired language version of the handbook plus any 
>> "shared directories" required for "make command" to work. How do I do this?
> 
> It is intentionally undocumented, as there are multiple parts from
> the root needed to build a translation tree (in addition to the
> english sources, which are used when translations do not exist).
> No one has gone through to enumerate the list and commit to keeping
> it up to date as the build system changes. That is to say, you are
> free to attempt it, but it will require some investigation and it
> will probably be simpler overall to just accept the extra bytes as
> the cost of convenience.
> 
>

My post never voiced anything about the different translations of the
English version of the handbook. There is a separate doc on translations.

My interpretation of your reply is that it is technicality possible to
checkout the desired handbook source based on language and them checkout
the parts of the master doc tree needed to "make" the html code version.
That to date, nobody has updated the
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/fdp-primer/
to include this information and I am free to do so.

>> I ran the "igor -R filename.xml | less -RS" command on the chapter I 
>> wanted to work on before making any changes. To my surprise a bunch of 
>> error are shown. Since these error are all already in the handbook 
>> source I see no reason why I should try to correct them.
> 
> Just because errors are preexisting they should be ignored instead
> of fixed?  To be clear, no one is going to insist that you fix all
> issues in a file before adding content to it, but it is also a fine
> idea to make an initial cleanup patch before starting to do further
> work.
> 
> As to how this situation might arise, the existing content is often
> quite old, and igor is a comparatively new tool (and continues to
> receive updates), so it is not surprising that there is old content
> that does not fully comply to the current standards.
> 

So "igor" is am independent application whose purpose is intended for
informational use only. It does not inhibit the flow of making changes.
It may be skipped all together. If something is really codded 
incorrectly the "make" process will fail with very limited feedback 
about the what it doesn't like and "igor" may used to help in the 
investigation to fix the problem.


>> When I ran the "make" command the resulting html files are just written 
>> into the directory that "make" was run from. How do I tell "make" to 
>> write the output to a location of my selection?
> 
> 'make install' should respect DESTDIR, of course, and I think (but
> did not test) that the usual OBJDIR-manipulation variables would
> work.
> 

I take this to mean there are existing methods to point the html code 
generated by the make process to a separate path. Being brand new to 
changing content of the handbook I am un-familiar with the DESTIR and 
OBJDIR variables.

Please provide an example of how to code it on the command line.


>> What is really lacking is a way to view the changed output in a command 
>> line browser. Installing a desktop just to view the changed handbook is 
>> not an acceptable solution.
> 
> But, what would the other location of your selection be that would
> be differently viewable in a command-line browser than the html
> files in the build tree?  I generally use a browser (desktop or not)
> to view the html files next to the xml sources, which is usually
> "good enough" for what I need to do.
>


There is a very big difference between viewing the raw html or xml code 
in a command line editor and what one sees when shown by a browser. The 
ports system doesn't have a command line browser capable of displaying 
the handbook content. I ftp the new generated html code to my ms/xp box 
and view it using firefox. This method brings to light visual errors 
that are syntax correct but not what you really wanted.

> -Ben
> 

When I have complete knowledge of how to change the handbook I am 
planing to update the fdp-primer incorporating this new information.

Thank you Ben for you help and guidance.