Re: [rfc-i] getting SVG of RFC diagrams

[Marc Petit-Huguenin <[e-mail]>]

What I believe we really need is a better id2xml program.  I'll financially contribute to a Kickstarter/Patreon with that goal.

On 11/27/23 09:21, Paul Kyzivat wrote:
> Paul H,
> 
> On 11/26/23 6:07 PM, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>> On 26 Nov 2023, at 14:53, Paul Kyzivat wrote:
>>
>>> OK, it seems Carsten and I are in violent agreement.
>>> Can we hear from some others here on rfc-interest on whether this is popular enough to pursue further? At some point it probably needs to be discussed on the tools list.
>>
>> This discussion started with "I want to be able to extract $x" and veered into "the RPC should be making $x available to everyone for every RFC". A different path would be "it would be nice if I could extract $x from one or more RFCs locally".
>>
>> Given that no one has asked the original question before now, it seems likely to only be needed by a small number (maybe less than a few dozen) people. Thus, a discoverable tool that does it might be better than making the RPC add the tool and the process for everyone.
> 
> Its already "possible" to extract this stuff, if you are sufficiently knowledgeable. At the most basic you can extract what you want from the xml using just a text editor.
> 
> We are discussing how to make it easier while requiring less specialized knowledge. What to do of course depends on what users we are trying to address. There are many potential uses for this capability.
> 
> My interest came from working on a bunch of sip documents that define syntax using ABNF. The core defining document for sip is RFC3261. Its ABNF is large self contained except it uses the ABNF core rules. It references SDP (RFC237) but their syntax is independent. There are quite a lot of follow on documents that extend and revise RFC3261 and/or RFC2327. Many of those contain new ABNF describing their extension as an addition/revision of the ABNF in prior documents.
> 
> Validating the ABNF of one of those documents requires extracting it from the document, then identifying (recursively) other documents containing referenced ABNF, extracting that, and merging all of that. Only then can the ABNF be validated.
> 
> This was sufficiently painful that it was rarely done. While I did it a few times, usually it was expedient to just validate the new ABNF and manually check that the undefined rules were defined in the referenced documents. Other sorts of possible errors such as conflicting definitions of rules could easy slip by.
> 
> I would like to see tooling that automatically validates ABNF when documents are submitted. Doing so would require a tool that extracts ABNF from already published documents. The same mechanisms would also be important for an implementer who wants to compile all the ABNF into a parser.
> 
> This automatic validation should of course extend to other sorts of sorcecode in document, such as json and yang. So tools to automatically extract that would also be needed.
> 
> So I see the current proposal as part of one step down this path to further tools.
> 
>     Thanks,
>     Paul K
> 
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-- 
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Email: [e-mail]
Blog: https://marc.petit-huguenin.org
Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petithug