Re: Off list request (was: Re: xml and txt submission on web page)

[Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[e-mail]>]

Hi, John,

On Fri, Jun 15, 2018 at 2:33 PM John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

> (sorry folks... didn't mean to bother others with this but
> obviously slipped up)
>

As someone who saw "submit the XML and we'll process it", tried that with
.txt as part of the filename, got the error that Henrik has just provided a
warning about, and said "forget it, I've got the TXT right here, so I'll
just submit .xml and .txt" and never thought about it again, I'm not
bothered by this discussion.

It's been helpful. Even the inadvertent parts.

Spencer, who has been using XML2RFC for as long as I can remember, and who
learned something useful anyway.


>    john
>
>
> --On Friday, June 15, 2018 15:11 -0400 John C Klensin
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> > Alexandre,
> >
> > In the light of the note Henrik posted after I started to write
> > this, the note that follows may be irrelevant, but possibly
> > worth reading anyway.
> >
> > In your tour of the problems that you have discussed on-list,
> > you have identified a problem or three with xml2rdc that
> > deserves a trouble report.  I hope for better, but even if the
> > only effect of that report is to make sure that bugs of xml2rfc
> > v2 do not get carried forward into the production version of
> > xml2rfc v3, that would be a positive step.
> >
> > I trust you are not surprised that these things, especially the
> > file name and "suffix"/"file type" stuff have been noticed by,
> > and irritated lots of others.  We have just (eventually)
> > learned what the problem is and then decided that remembering
> > to not cause it is less trouble than asking for fixes (and
> > maybe being necessary anyway).
> >
> > One problem is that such a complaint must be written carefully
> > to avoid causing other problems.   For example, if we were to
> > complain that, in the <rfc> element,
> >    draft-<stuff>-nn
> > is accepted but
> >    draft-<stuff>-nn.txt
> > is not and produces incomprehensible messages, we might get a
> > fix that would clearly reject not only the second case but
> > names that do no9 contain exactly two digits before the end of
> > the string.   That would be a disaster for those of us who use
> > assorted naming tricks to keep track of intermediate versions
> > that are not intended for posting and that are intended to be
> > seen only by the author(s) and a small circle of friends until
> > there have been enough iteration in that group to make them fit
> > for posting.
> >
> > You have also uncovered a great deal of confusion about things
> > that may be worth getting documented (or at least flagged).
> > For example, when you complained about not being able to submit
> > an XML file for posting without a text one, I replied that the
> > text one was required.  It was at one point, but I was wrong;
> > it seems that the tool will now accept XML and compile it.  I
> > make sufficiently many XML mistakes that I haven't had the
> > nerve to try that or find out about it.
> >
> > Other comments in response to your notes have implied that the
> > submission tool requires that the names of the file names that
> > are uploaded must match the names that will be used in the
> > Internet-Drafts directory.  That isn't true.  For example, if I
> > have properly structured files for
> >    draft-ietf-example-example-00.txt    and
> >    draft-ietf-example-example-00.xml
> > but keep them in my file system as, e.g.,
> >       examp-example-00.txt   abd
> >       examp-example-00.xml
> > the system will upload those files without problems an just
> > proceed normally.   This is a big advantage for those who use
> > personal file naming conventions (perhaps, as above, for
> > sub-version tracking and perhaps just because they are lazy
> > about typing) and so on.
> >
> > Anyway, I cannot do more with this until mid-next-week, but, it
> > you would find it helpful to work with me on a coherent list of
> > specific issues (in either code or documentation) rather than
> > just making iterative complaints of the IETF list, please get
> > back to me.
> >
> > best,
> >     john
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>