Re: [xml2rfc] Links to rfc7991bis.rnc may need some fixing

[Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>]

On 2. Mar 2022, at 07:24, Martin J. Dürst <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Dear XML2RFC experts,
> 
> I just started recently with a new ID using xml2rfc, after a long hiatus. Things went fairly smooth, but one thing that caused problems was that there are links for rfc7991bis.rnc that actually go to
> https://github.com/ietf-authors/rfcxml-templates-and-schemas/blob/main/rfc7991bis.rnc. I naively tried to just download that with "save link as" from my browser, but that didn't give me the actual file, just a github page including the actual file. It took me quite a while to figure out what the resulting error messages meant, and what had happened.
> 
> I no longer remember where I originally found such a link, but I have found one on https://authors.ietf.org/en/templates-and-schemas, in the Schemas section.
> 
> Anyway, if you put a link on a filename, make it so that it works for direct downloading. Everything else is highly confusing. If you want to link to the relevant github page, please add a separate link making clear that this link doesn't link to the actual file. Many thanks in advance.

This is also very confusing for me.

The authoritative RFCXMLv3 grammar is at

https://github.com/ietf-tools/xml2rfc/blob/main/xml2rfc/data/v3.rnc
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ietf-tools/xml2rfc/main/xml2rfc/data/v3.rnc is the raw version of that.)

This appears to be a precursor to the one at rfcxml-templates-and-schemas, which has less indentation and more comment text.

I also find a version of the v3.rnc that includes grammar for xi:xinclude, which is needed for some tools if you use that feature.

The name rfc7991bis.rnc also seems to relate to various other activities.
There is an expired draft at:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-iab-rfc7991bis-03

… which points to the xml2rfc-dev mailing list as its locus of discussion.

While there is no repo information on that draft or its datatracker entry, there is a GitHub repo at

https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis

… which appears to have recent activity.

This includes a

https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis/blob/master/xml2rfcv3.rng

… which is used in the accompanying Makefile to create an xml2rfcv3.rnc, as well as an annotated RNG from text from the I-D in that directory.

I don’t find documentation as to what the intentions with these various copies and versions is, and whether the naming of the files has any relation to those.

Grüße, Carsten