Re: [Rfc-markdown] [Tools-discuss] [xml2rfc] End of support for xml2rfc on Python 2.x is coming soon

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On Oct 9, 2019, at 00:18, Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Signed PGP part
> Hi Carsten,
> 
> On 2019-10-08 23:48, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>> On Oct 8, 2019, at 23:23, Russ Housley <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> (2) The default output formatters will change to v3.  The v2 formatters
>>>   will still be available by using a --legacy switch.
>> 
>> Please do this in a way that will not randomly break scripts and
>> other programs that need to run xml2rfc. (A calling script/program
>> has no idea what version of xml2rfc is installed locally.) [Actually,
>> that is also true of people calling xml2rfc…]
> 
> Does it work for you if we say 'if you want v2 output, please add --legacy
> to your scripts already now’?

It sure works for me, but I don’t know all the other users of my software.

> The --legacy switch to force v2 output (for compatible input) has been
> available for around 6 months, so even if you don't have the bleeding
> edge version installed, this should work as a compatibility path, I think?

6 months is very short in the grand scheme of things.

Generally people will upgrade tools like kramdown-rfc and xml2rfc on different timelines.
(And there are also a few hundred makefiles in some repositories somewhere that call xml2rfc.)

With that out of the way, I must admit I don’t even understand what this means:

  Format Options:
    --v3                                with --text and --html: use the v3
                                        formatter, rather than the legacy one.
    --legacy                            with --text and --html: use the legacy
                                        text formatter, rather than the v3
                                        one.

Does the choice of “legacy” and “v3” formatter have an influence on the accepted XML vocabulary?  On the output format?  Both?  How?

Grüße, Carsten