J.2. Tool Sets
The following tools are used to process the documentation. Some might be optional, as noted.
- DocBook DTD
This is the definition of DocBook itself. We currently use version 4.2; you cannot use later or earlier versions. You need theSGML variant of the DocBook DTD, but to build man pages you also need theXML variant of the same version.
- ISO 8879 character entities
These are required by DocBook but are distributed separately because they are maintained by ISO.
- DocBook DSSSL Stylesheets
These contain the processing instructions for converting the DocBook sources to other formats, such asHTML.
- DocBook XSL Stylesheets
This is another stylesheet for converting DocBook to other formats. We currently use this to produce man pages and optionally HTMLHelp. You can also use this toolchain to produce HTML or PDF output, but official PostgreSQL releases use the DSSSL stylesheets for that.
The minimum required version is currently 1.74.0.
- OpenJade
This is the base package ofSGML processing. It contains anSGML parser, aDSSSL processor (that is, a program to convertSGML to other formats usingDSSSL stylesheets), as well as a number of related tools.Jade is now being maintained by the OpenJade group, no longer by James Clark.
- Libxml2 for
xmllintThis library and the
xmllinttool it contains are used for processing XML. Many developers will already haveLibxml2 installed, because it is also used when building the PostgreSQL code. Note, however, thatxmllintmight need to be installed from a separate subpackage.- Libxslt for
xsltprocThis is the processing tool to use with the XSLT stylesheets (like
jadeis the processing tool for DSSSL stylesheets).- JadeTeX
If you want to, you can also installJadeTeX to useTeX as a formatting backend forJade.JadeTeX can create PostScript orPDF files (the latter with bookmarks).
However, the output fromJadeTeX is inferior to what you get from theRTF backend. Particular problem areas are tables and various artifacts of vertical and horizontal spacing. Also, there is no opportunity to manually polish the results.
We have documented experience with several installation methods for the various tools that are needed to process the documentation. These will be described below. There might be some other packaged distributions for these tools. Please report package status to the documentation mailing list, and we will include that information here.
J.2.1. Installation on Fedora, RHEL, and Derivatives
To install the required packages, use:
yum install docbook-dtds docbook-style-dsssl docbook-style-xsl libxslt openjade
J.2.2. Installation on FreeBSD
The FreeBSD Documentation Project is itself a heavy user of DocBook, so it comes as no surprise that there is a full set of“ports” of the documentation tools available on FreeBSD. The following ports need to be installed to build the documentation on FreeBSD.
textproc/docbook-sgmltextproc/docbook-xmltextproc/docbook-xsltextproc/dsssl-docbook-modulartextproc/libxslttextproc/openjade
A number of things from/usr/ports/print (tex,jadetex) might also be of interest.
More information about the FreeBSD documentation tools can be found in the FreeBSD Documentation Project's instructions.
J.2.3. Debian Packages
There is a full set of packages of the documentation tools available forDebian GNU/Linux. To install, simply use:
apt-get install docbook docbook-dsssl docbook-xsl libxml2-utils openjade1.3 opensp xsltproc
J.2.4. OS X
If you use MacPorts, the following will get you set up:
sudo port install docbook-dsssl docbook-sgml-4.2 docbook-xml-4.2 docbook-xsl libxslt openjade opensp
J.2.5. Manual Installation from Source
The manual installation process of the DocBook tools is somewhat complex, so if you have pre-built packages available, use them. We describe here only a standard setup, with reasonably standard installation paths, and no“fancy” features. For details, you should study the documentation of the respective package, and readSGML introductory material. The installation of OpenJade offers a GNU-style Be sure to remember where you put the“default catalog”; you will need it below. You can also leave it off, but then you will have to set the environment variable Some users have reported encountering a segmentation fault using OpenJade 1.4devel to build the PDFs, with a message like: Downgrading to OpenJade 1.3 should get rid of this error. Additionally, you should install the files Finally, create the file (This is a relative path reference to the file installed inStep 2. Be sure to adjust it if you chose your installation layout differently.) Obtain the DocBook V4.2 distribution. Create the directory Unpack the archive: (The archive will unpack its files into the current directory.) Edit the file Download the ISO 8879 character entities archive, unpack it, and put the files in the same directory you put the DocBook files in: Run the following command in the directory with the DocBook and ISO files: (This fixes a mixup between the names used in the DocBook catalog file and the actual names of the ISO character entity files.) To install the style sheets, unzip and untar the distribution and move it to a suitable place, for example The usual catalog entry in Because stylesheets change rather often, and it's sometimes beneficial to try out alternative versions,PostgreSQL doesn't use this catalog entry. SeeSection J.2.6 for information about how to select the stylesheets instead. To install and useJadeTeX, you will need a working installation ofTeX andLaTeX2e, including the supportedtools andgraphics packages,Babel,AMS fonts andAMS-LaTeX, thePSNFSS extension and companion kit of“the 35 fonts”, thedvips program for generatingPostScript, the macro packagesfancyhdr,hyperref,minitoc,url andot2enc. All of these can be found on your friendly neighborhoodCTAN site. The installation of theTeX base system is far beyond the scope of this introduction. Binary packages should be available for any system that can runTeX. Before you can useJadeTeX with thePostgreSQL documentation sources, you will need to increase the size ofTeX's internal data structures. Details on this can be found in theJadeTeX installation instructions. Once that is finished you can installJadeTeX: The last two need to be done asroot.J.2.5.1. Installing OpenJade
./configure; make; make install build process. Details can be found in the OpenJade source distribution. In a nutshell:./configure --enable-default-catalog=/usr/local/share/sgml/catalogmakemake install
SGML_CATALOG_FILES to point to the file whenever you usejade later on. (This method is also an option if OpenJade is already installed and you want to install the rest of the toolchain locally.)Note
openjade:./stylesheet.dsl:664:2:E: flow object not accepted by port; only display flow objects acceptedmake: *** [postgres-A4.tex-pdf] Segmentation fault
dsssl.dtd,fot.dtd,style-sheet.dtd, andcatalog from thedsssl directory somewhere, perhaps into/usr/local/share/sgml/dsssl. It's probably easiest to copy the entire directory:cp -R dsssl /usr/local/share/sgml
/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog and add this line to it:CATALOG "dsssl/catalog"
J.2.5.2. Installing theDocBookDTD Kit
/usr/local/share/sgml/docbook-4.2 and change to it. (The exact location is irrelevant, but this one is reasonable within the layout we are following here.)$mkdir /usr/local/share/sgml/docbook-4.2$cd /usr/local/share/sgml/docbook-4.2$unzip -a ...../docbook-4.2.zip/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog (or whatever you told jade during installation) and put a line like this into it:CATALOG "docbook-4.2/docbook.cat"
$cd /usr/local/share/sgml/docbook-4.2$unzip ...../ISOEnts.zipperl -pi -e 's/iso-(.*).gml/ISO\1/g' docbook.cat
J.2.5.3. Installing the DocBookDSSSL Style Sheets
/usr/local/share/sgml. (The archive will automatically create a subdirectory.)$gunzip docbook-dsssl-1.xx.tar.gz$tar -C /usr/local/share/sgml -xf docbook-dsssl-1.xx.tar/usr/local/share/sgml/catalog can also be made:CATALOG "docbook-dsssl-1.
xx/catalog"J.2.5.4. InstallingJadeTeX
$gunzip jadetex-xxx.tar.gz$tar xf jadetex-xxx.tar$cd jadetex$make install$mktexlsr
J.2.6. Detection byconfigure
Before you can build the documentation you need to run theconfigure script as you would when building thePostgreSQL programs themselves. Check the output near the end of the run, it should look something like this:
checking for onsgmls... onsgmlschecking for openjade... openjadechecking for DocBook V4.2... yeschecking for DocBook stylesheets... /usr/share/sgml/docbook/stylesheet/dsssl/modularchecking for collateindex.pl... /usr/bin/collateindex.plchecking for xsltproc... xsltprocchecking for osx... osx If neitheronsgmls nornsgmls were found then some of the following tests will be skipped.nsgmls is part of the Jade package. You can pass the environment variablesJADE andNSGMLS to configure to point to the programs if they are not found automatically. If“DocBook V4.2” was not found then you did not install the DocBook DTD kit in a place where Jade can find it, or you have not set up the catalog files correctly. See the installation hints above. The DocBook stylesheets are looked for in a number of relatively standard places, but if you have them some other place then you should set the environment variableDOCBOOKSTYLE to the location and rerunconfigure afterwards.